Huskies are ‘embarrassed’

Published 9:00 pm Saturday, November 11, 2006

SEATTLE – Sometimes in sports there are silver linings, even after the most dismal defeat.

But you’d have been hard pressed to find anyone at Husky Stadium on Saturday – save for the smattering of giddy Stanford fans – who could put a happy face on an utterly dreary afternoon for the University of Washington football team.

Say that in spades for everyone in the UW locker room.

To a man, the coaches and players said almost the exact same thing in the wake of a shocking 20-3 loss to the Cardinal, which arrived in Seattle with an 0-9 season record. No, the Huskies were not looking past Stanford to next Saturday’s Apple Cup showdown with rival Washington State. No, the UW did not take the winless Cardinal lightly. No, the Huskies were neither distracted nor ambivalent during their week of practice.

And, yes, this defeat hurt almost as much as any in memory for the fellows in purple and gold.

”After the game I was thinking about the seasons we had before this,” said linebacker Tahj Bomar, one of 25 seniors playing their final game at Husky Stadium. ”Going 1-10 (in 2004) and 2-9 (a year ago), those are pretty bad seasons. But with the way we started off this season 4-1 and with the progress we showed, to play like this and let the Husky fans down, it really hurt.

”It just gives you a sick feeling in your stomach,” he said.

Almost an hour later, a few Huskies still seemed near to tears. Gone was the opportunity to play in a bowl game, which has never happened for most of the players on the team (only a handful of redshirt seniors were around when the program last went to a bowl game, in December of 2002).

”This is just about rock bottom,” said wide receiver Sonny Shackleford, a senior who arrived at Washington in the fall of 2003.

”Now I know for sure there’s no chance of us getting a bowl bid,” Shackleford said. ”There’s no chance of us having a postseason. All I’ve got left for my whole college career is the Apple Cup. In the whole four years I’ve been here, that’s all I’ve got left.”

Senior linebacker Scott White, who was a redshirt freshman on the 2002 team, had no explanation for the team’s poor performance against Stanford. Everyone knew, he pointed out, that Washington could go to a bowl game – likely the Hawaii Bowl in Honolulu – by beating Stanford and Washington State.

”Guys were focused,” he said. ”They knew what was at stake. They were playing for a shot at the Hawaii Bowl.

”I don’t want to take anything away from Stanford,” White added, ”but they were a winless team. We were playing for a bowl game and they were really not playing for anything. To let them come in and beat us on Senior Day, it’s an embarrassment.”

”It was embarrassing the way we lost,” agreed offensive guard Stanley Daniels, another senior. ”I’m a senior and I’ve been here five years now, and I’ve been around a lot of people, a lot of teams. We just didn’t play Husky football today, so from that point of view it is kind of embarrassing.”

Among Saturday’s many low points, said junior quarterback Carl Bonnell, was being in the somber UW locker room after the game and hearing the Stanford players celebrating nearby.

”That is one of the worst feelings you can have as a Husky player in your own stadium,” he said. ”For the first few minutes we just sat there quiet, listening.”

Washington coach Tyrone Willingham, who often avoids strong statements, was unusually candid after the defeat. The loss was ”a step back,” he said, for a program that had raised expectations this season with a 4-1 start.

”Obviously, the results of the day are difficult for the team and the coaching staff to deal with,” Willingham said. ”We did not play a good football game. We did not execute or do any of the things we needed to do to be successful.”

Washington opened its Pacific-10 Conference season with wins against UCLA and Arizona, but has since lost six straight games with one to play – a trip to Pullman to face the Cougars next Saturday.

”If we have the right character of young men, and I can say that I believe we do, and if we’ve got the right leadership for them in our coaches, then we’re going to come out battling,” Willingham said. ”We’re not going to give up the ship. We missed this goal (of getting to a bowl game), but the Apple Cup is on the line.

”We’ve still got a chance,” he said, ”to finish this year on a positive note.”