After watching Washington take a 48-14 pounding at the hands of Arizona, a colleague and I decided to grab a postgame beer and a slice of pizza at a spot located just off campus.
The doorman who was checking IDs at No Anchovies! Gourmet Pizzaria -- good pizza if you're ever in the area, by the way -- saw that both of us had Washington driver's licenses, and apparently felt bad enough to offer up his condolences.
"Sorry about your football team," he said.
Apparently it's come down to this: UW football is so bad that bouncers feel sorry for anyone who happens to hold identification from the Evergreen State.
But hey, at least there are still seven games left this season.
Oh wait ... seven more?
Yikes.
OK, well at least we have the Seahawks.
What's that? They did what in New York? Nevermind.
Five games into the 2008 season, the Huskies are challenging the underachieving, high-payroll Mariners, as well as the team formerly known as the Sonics for the title of Saddest Seattle Sports Team.
One of two scenarios is true for this UW team. Either the players have given up, they know that coach Tyrone Willingham is on his way out, and they know their season is effectively over one week into October, and they've decided to go through the motions. Or -- and this may be worse -- the Huskies are really just this bad four years into Willingham's tenure at Washington.
The players who talked to the media Saturday night were clearly rattled, but insisted that the team hasn't given up on their coach or their season.
"A lot of us, the reason we came here is coach Willingham, so we're not going to give up on our head coach," said redshirt freshman quarterback Ronnie Fouch, who was making his first start. "We all came here for him and we're going to keep fighting and battling, no matter what it takes. We're not going to give up this season. We're just going to keep fighting. It was our fifth game of the year, we've still got some more games to play. We've got a second half of the season, we've just got to keep fighting."
If what we saw on Saturday truly was a team fighting and battling and not giving up, then the Huskies are in some serious trouble from here out. Even in 2004, a 1-10 season that also featured a coach on his way out, the Huskies didn't lose games as badly as they have this season. Washington's worst loss that year was by 38 points, and the Huskies lost by 30 or more only two other times.
This season, just five games in, Washington has already lost games by 34 points, 41 points, and 34 points again Saturday. And that's before Washington has faced USC, Cal or Arizona State, arguably three of the four best teams in the conference.
And while players and coaches insist that the effort was there, at least one player on the other side of the ball said he saw something different.
"Right before the half we were taking a knee. (Arizona tight end) A.J. Simmons and me were saying these guys are looking sick over there," Arizona tailback Nic Grigsby told the Tucson Citizen. "I looked over there and they were not talking to each other, not doing nothing. We sensed they were quitting already. In the second half we tried to pour it on."
Based on the comments from athletic director Scott Woodward -- and, by the way, it's a pretty bad sign if an AD has to meet with reporters to discuss a coaching situation immediately following the fifth game of the season -- Tyrone Willingham will stick around for the rest of the season. With no change apparently coming soon, the Huskies will have to try to tune out all of the noise surrounding the program and avoid the temptation to give up on a lost season.
Just how the Huskies drag themselves off the mat and finish the season, however, is something of a mystery to the coaches and players.
"I have no idea," senior cornerback Mesphin Forrester said when asked what his team needs to do next. "I honestly don't know. We just have to look to our leader, just find a way and go with what he says. I myself, at this point, I don't know man. We've just got to find a way to win a game, starting with Oregon State. We just have to find a way, any way."
As a dejected fan at the aforementioned pizza joint asked his friend after the game, "How long until Husky basketball starts?"
