SEATTLE — Nate Williams could talk about the postseason Monday, and no one was scoffing or snickering at the thought.
The University of Washington’s senior safety was finally in position to look at his team at midseason and see the potential for bowl participation.
“The whole time I’ve been here, we’ve never been 3-3 at this point,” Williams said as his Huskies sit at the midpoint of their season with a .500 record. “We’ve either been 2-4 or 0-and-whatever.”
Saturday night’s win over Oregon State did more than provide one of the greatest finishes in recent memory and even up the Huskies’ record. It also provided hope for the future.
One week after a home loss to Arizona State had left the team’s prospects as bleak as a cloudy autumn day, the Huskies were back in business — thanks to the overtime win over OSU.
On Monday, coach Steve Sarksian and his players were still sticking to the never-too-high, never-too-low strategy that has allowed them to weather some storms this season. Not even Williams was willing to make any predictions about getting to the postseason.
What the senior was saying was that UW, with victories over nationally-ranked teams in two of its past three games, was beginning to prove that it can play with some of the best teams in the country.
“It kind of put it in perspective that we have the ability to play a game in January,” he said. “Playing a great team in Oregon State, playing them hard late into the game, we still executed and still played hard. It just let us know that we could go to a bowl, and we could compete with any team out there, just as long as we execute.”
It’s a long way from where the Huskies appeared to be this time last week. After the ASU loss, UW was staring at a 2-3 record and four consecutive games against ranked opponents. A loss to the Beavers on Saturday night could have sent the team reeling back into the depths of Also-Ran-ville.
With the 35-34 victory came a new glimmer of hope.
“We just want to keep winning, and whatever happens, happens,” senior linebacker Mason Foster said. “We want to get to a bowl game, but we don’t want to think about it like that. We just want to take it one game at a time.”
Sarkisian, who refused to look at the ASU loss as a season-changer, was in similar blinders after Saturday’s win. He was ready to move on from the two-overtime thriller and begin planning for Arizona.
“We’re taking the approach that it’s this game that matters,” he said Monday afternoon. “There is a real sense of urgency in our locker room right now. And we are going to prepare well this week, and we are going to play hard. If that’s good enough to win, I don’t know that. But we are going to play hard.”
This marks just the third time since 2004 that the Huskies have had a .500 record or better after six games, and the journey has certainly been a unique one. UW has yet to win two games in a row, or lose two in a row, and, yet has never waned from its postseason goals.
“We’re a resilient group, that’s for sure,” Sarkisian said when asked to summarize the first half of the 2010 season. “I think this team could have easily cashed it in at any point after one of those three losses, and they haven’t. So, if I could put one word on the first half: resilient. Hopefully, we have a couple better words for the second half.”
The journey probably won’t get any easier over the next few weeks. UW (3-3 overall, 2-1 in the Pac-10) faces three consecutive nationally-ranked opponents — No. 15 Arizona on Saturday night, No. 12 Stanford a week later and current No. 1 Oregon on Nov. 6 — and, if the rankings hold, that would give the Huskies six ranked opponents in a span of seven games.
With victories over then-No. 19 USC and then-No. 24 Oregon State, UW doesn’t feel any kind of intimidation factor when facing ranked opponents.
“We can play with anybody,” junior linebacker Cort Dennison said. “We have the attitude that everybody puts their chinstrap on, everybody puts their helmet on, lace their shoulder pads up. It’s not like anybody’s special.
“We’ve got great players, just like the other team’s got great players. Anytime we go into a game, we expect to win. That’s our mindset — no matter if the team’s ranked or not ranked.”
What else came out of Saturday’s game was that the Huskies’ main goal of getting to a Rose Bowl is still somewhat alive. UW actually controls its own destiny and, with a win over the Wildcats on Saturday night, would be among a dwindling group of teams tied for second behind the top-ranked Ducks.
All of that is way out of the Huskies’ frame of mind right now, but what’s clear is that the win over OSU gave them possibilities again.
For the Huskies’ one-step-at-a-time head coach, the only thing that matters now is putting the back end on a two-game winning streak this Saturday.
“Hopefully we can break that trend this week,” Sarkisian said of following every win with a loss, and vice versa. “It’s obviously a tough assignment going to Tucson, but all we want to do is put our best foot forward.”
If they don’t, the Huskies know all too well that the façade of a redirected season can just as quickly jump off the tracks again.
“Any week, we can lose to whoever,” Williams said. “Or Alabama can lose. Or Texas can lose. You have to go out and compete, week in and week out.”
Or else Williams might not still be talking about the postseason come November.
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