The Aftermath

Published 9:00 pm Friday, September 8, 2006

Just got back to my hotel room and clicked on the Oregon game. I’m real interested to see how this game turns out, given that the Huskies play Fresno State next week. I think Oregon is really good, so if Fresno can play with them or even beat them, it wouldn’t bode well for next week.

I left the interview room after talking to the Huskies following the game with a pretty good feeling. They seemed disappointed and felt like they played pretty well and were competitive, but just didn’t have enough in the second half. That’s better than being resigned to it being another long season. Isaiah Stanback did seem pretty dispondent, but that could have been because he was coming off of such a big game and struggled against a good defensive front. And certainly he’ll be re-playing his fumble in his head all week.

Washington was clearly overmatched in this game. Washington’s offense is not good enough to do much against a defense as fast as Oklahoma’s. But Washington is definitely running the ball better than I expected. But the wide receivers are nowhere near as good as I thought they’d be, and I think the Huskies really missed Michael Gottlieb and Robert Lewis.

Defensively, there has to be real concern over the secondary. Oklahoma is a mediocre passing team, but Paul Thompson picked apart the Husky DBs. What’s going to happen when Washington plays against the great passing teams in the Pac-10? It’s a scary thought.

Many of the Husky players talked about next week being critical, and it really is. Having a good Fresno team come to Husky Stadium will be a big test and a better read of what the Huskies can do than Oklahoma was. And following that is UCLA and Arizona. These next three weeks will be the difference between knowing if this is a turnaround season or just another in the line of poor seasons.