The USC aftermath

Published 9:50 pm Saturday, November 1, 2008

Hard to find any positives in that 56-0 loss, the Huskies worst since they lost to Miami by 58 in 2001. That was also Washington’s first shutout loss since losing 38-0 here in 2004.

But hey, at least the Huskies aren’t alone in their misery tonight, as Washington State was shutout by Stanford 58-0.

What’s really scary is that the Huskies say this was them giving their best effort and playing hard for their recently-fired coach.

Really? I think Husky fans would rather hear that the team was distracted this week and didn’t put forth its best effort tonight.

But apparently that wasn’t the case.

“Honestly it gave us a lot more motivation to come out and play for him,” said tailback Brandon Johnson. “Honestly coach Willingham is a good man and we’ve all got a lot of respect for him for sticking with us, not quitting on us, not leaving us. He still gave us the best game plan that he could give us. We just didn’t come out and follow through with it. It’s tough to know that he’s not coming back next year. But a lot of guys still have love for him and still have respect for him, so they still want to go out and play their heart out for him.

Said QB Ronnie Fouch:

“It inspired us to go out and play for him. Any kind of coach that’s in this situation could give up. But he still fights and he cares about us a lot, so we play for him.”

Said safety Tripper Johnson:

“I don’t think it had anything to do with the game. He’s a solid person and he’s been fighting all week, getting us ready for this game. So emotionally as a team, I don’t think affected us at all. We just didn’t perform.”

The numbers show that they indeed didn’t perform well. The Trojans out-gained the Huskies 325 yards to 35 in the first half when they were still playing their starters, and 485 to 184 for the night. USC also had 18 first-half first downs to just two for Washington, and the Trojans attepted just three passes in the second half. Washington’s leading rusher, Brandon Johnson, had just 54 yards on 18 carries, the leading receiver, D’Andre Goodwin, had just 35 yards on five catches, and Fouch was 14 for 33 for 113 yards with three interceptions, giving him seven interceptions in four starts.

And we’ll end tonight’s blog with this quote from Terrance Dailey, which really sums this season up nicely:

“I feel like every week it’s just a week with the same thing. It’s like a broken record.”