Reactions to another loss

Published 11:00 pm Saturday, November 8, 2008

Hey, at least the Huskies found a new way to lose this time, right? Instead of being out of this game early, Washington gave fans some hope before falling apart in the second half on the way to a 39-19 loss.

Arizona State out-gained the Huskies 400 to 279 in this one. Washington had only 75 yards in the second half, and only eight until its final drive of the game.

The Huskies made it entertaining in the first half thanks to a couple of trick plays that involved receiver Cody Bruns throwing the ball.

“Probably the most of the whole year, the first half was fun, because we were in the game, moving the ball, scoring,” quarterback Ronnie Fouch said. “We’d obviously like to get more touchdowns instead of field goals, but we just got stopped on a couple of drives and it didn’t work out.”

And although the trick plays were big in the first half for Washington, it was also a trick play in the third quarter that swung the momentum in ASU’s favor as Fouch was sacked for a 12-yard loss on a double reverse.

“We probably went to the well one too many times in the second half with the reverse pass,” offensive coordinator Tim Lappano said.

And speaking of those trick plays here’s a crazy stat for you: Quarterback Ronnie Fouch now has as many touchdowns, one, as receiver D’Andre Goodwin this season. Goodwin came into the game second in the Pac-10 in receptions, and now has 49 catches for 632 yards, but just one score.

The Huskies were accused by many of quitting after last week’s drubbing in LA, but came out fired up today.

“We had some swagger in the locker room that I’ve never seen since I’ve been here, and I loved it,” Lappano said. “There was some juice in the locker room. I feel like they felt that they could win. Our whole thing this week was, we’ve got to start fast, and that was part of the special plays that we designed was to help us start fast and make something happen.”

They just couldn’t sustain that energy for the whole game, however.

“We played hard, we played with energy, but we did not finish,” Tyrone Willingham said. “That’s what we’ve got to get to, we’ve got to find a way to finish.”

The Huskies again struggled to run the ball, averaging 1.9 yards per carry, and that number was a lot lower before Terrance Dailey got loose for 39 yards late in the game. Lappano said he needs to look at the film to see what went wrong there, but he was clearly frustrated with the continuing run-game struggles.

Next up for Washington is Rick Neuheisel’s return to Seattle and the team’s last home game.

“Something good has got to happen for these seniors, they’ve had a long four or five years here,” Lappano said. “It would be a nice way to send them out here with a victory against UCLA, then go on into the Apple Cup and send them away with a victory there. I’d like to be able to do that.”