UW seniors to go bowl-less
Published 11:56 pm Monday, November 12, 2007
SEATTLE — Going back to August, back to the days of two-a-day practices, there was one big goal everyone in the Washington football program was chasing.
Get back to a bowl game.
That meant winning seven games in a 13 game season, something that is no longer a possibility after Saturday’s loss against Oregon State.
“It’s heartbreaking to tell you the truth,” said defensive tackle Jordan Reffett. “I’ve been on this football team a long time, and haven’t had a chance to go to a bowl game. In that locker room, it was a solemn, solemn day.”
For seniors like Reffett, the loss was especially tough. On Saturday night, it became official that they will never know a bowl game or a winning season at Washington. Still, it hasn’t been all bad memories, the players say.
“It’s tough, but that’s how things happen,” said receiver Anthony Russo. “But I still had fun here. I still had fun playing for the Huskies. Things just happened that way.”
Now Washington is playing for pride, and playing to build momentum for the players who are coming back.
“We’re going to get after it these last three weeks, that’s for sure,” said Reffett. “We want to go out on a high note. We can’t go to a bowl game now, but we want to win these last three games. We don’t want to be lollygagging at practice or missing workouts. We’re going to go as hard as ever, because we want to send this football team off on a good note.”
So will it be difficult to keep playing hard when a bowl game is out of the picture? The Huskies say no.
“It’s just pride now,” said Russo. “Pride in playing for the Huskies. We don’t want to let anyone down. We’ve still got three games left, so we want to get these last three and go out winning as seniors. That’s the motivation for us.”
Pac-10’s take on a crazy night: The Pac-10 released a statement covering a number of topics from Saturday’s game, including the hit that injured Jake Locker, the four ejections, and the “fumble” by Yvenson Bernard that was not reviewed.
Pac-10 commissioner Tom Hansen said that the instant replay officials “Did not perform properly on the Bernard fumble play,” and that the instant replay crew has been reprimanded.
There will be no additional penalties for the personal fouls and scuffles that broke out, but all four players who were ejected, including Washington’s Ryan Tolar, will have to sit out the first half of this weekend’s game per NCAA rules because their ejections happened in the second half.
As for the hit on Locker, Hansen said that after reviewing the play, they “believe the helmet-to-helmet contact on the hit on Locker was inadvertent. College football is played at a very high speed, and hard collisions such as this one result. Thankfully, Locker apparently did not suffer a serious injury. The sight of him walking back into Reser Stadium during the fourth quarter was most welcome.”
Apple Cup game time announced: The Huskies and Cougars will kick off the 100th Apple Cup at 4 p.m. and the game will be televised on FSN. That announcement, which came Monday, means that all of Washington’s games will be televised this year, something that has never happened in Husky history.
Washington’s season finale against Hawaii, which will be shown on either ESPN or ESPN 2, will kick off at 8:30 p.m. Pacific time.
Players of the game: After passing for 233 yards and two touchdown in place of the injured Locker, Carl Bonnell was named the team’s offensive player of the game. Defensive honors went to Daniel Te’o-Nesheim, who had six tackles, a sack and a forced fumble, while special teams honors went to Chris Stevens, who had two solo tackles. Gregory Christine, Pete Galbraith and Quinton Richardson were named scout team players of the week.
Contact Herald Writer John Boyle at jboyle@heraldnet.com. For more on UW sports, check out the Huskies blog at heraldnet.com /huskiesblog
