USC in Retrospect

Published 9:00 pm Sunday, October 8, 2006

Having had a few days to digest what happened at the end of the USC game, I’ve finally come to a few conclusions. It was hard to tell exactly what happened from our vantage point, as the writers were on the sideline for the last sequence, which isn’t necessarily the best view, and there was so much chaos at the end that you couldn’t pay attention to everything that was going on. Now having seen the replay a couple times, my thought is that regardless of everything, the Huskies players are ultimately at fault for not getting the play off.

Breaking it down a bit: The new clock rules did hurt the Huskies, but not on the final play. The new rules only affect the first play of a drive, but those seconds that ticked off in that instance certainly would have helped in the end.

The officials absolutely handled the last play poorly. It’s obvious from the replay that there should have been 4 or 5 seconds on the clock, not 2. The meeting to discuss the time also seemed to be handled pretty badly. If there was a real question about the time, play should have been stopped and they should have gone to the replay booth.

I also remember thinking when the play happened and the umpire backed away from the ball and the whistle blew to start the clock, “Boy, that happened really fast,” and that seems to be what center Juan Garcia was thinking too, maybe not quite in those words.

But given all of that, the Huskies were clearly not in position to get the play off, and with the delay while the officials talked about things, they should have been. Instead they were kind of standing around wondering what was going on just like everyone else. That’s understandable, but the reality is, 2 seconds, 4 seconds, 5 seconds, whatever, it’s not going to change the play. At that point, all you can do is snap the ball and go for the end zone. They weren’t going to run any trick play or anything, they were going to let Isaiah Stanback make a play. So they should have been prepared to do that regardless of how many seconds were left.

In the end, though, it was a great effort by Washington, and realistically, from a bowl-standpoint – the win over Arizona on the road made the USC game a bonus. If the Huskies win, great, if not, it doesn’t kill the season, especially given what’s left to play at home. Washington should feel good about the effort it gave against the Trojans and put it behind them, because this can still be a 7- or 8-win season.

We won’t know exactly the players’ mindset today, as for the first time this season, they won’t be available for Monday’s weekly press luncheon. Instead it will just be a teleconference with OSU coach Mike Riley and then Tyrone Willingham meeting the media. The players got both Sunday and Monday off, which is a good thing probably at this point of the year.

In talking to someone close to Isaiah Stanback on Saturday night, the quarterback is hurting quite a bit more than he’s letting on, in a generally hurting way more than any specific injuries. I think that was clear when he went into his slides at the end of running plays, which he never does, probably to his detriment. It will be interesting to see (or not see, as is the case) if he gets time off in practice this week. Washington could really use a blow out this weekend to get some players some rest and get others playing time.