SEATTLE – How ‘bout those Bellevue High Wolverines.
Did they play a terrific game Saturday night or what?
To take mighty De La Salle apart like they did, to crumple the Spartans’ 151-game winning streak and toss it aside like a candy wrapper, to stylishly run the ball down the Californians’ throats, to put on a classic exhibition of how to execute the Wing-T offense. Well, it was one of the finest displays of football you could ever hope to see.
If you weren’t at Qwest Field to witness it, you really missed something.
Think about it. De La Salle hadn’t lost a game since 1991, had put together 12 consecutive perfect seasons and had won five mythical national championships.
You don’t think those Bellevue kids aren’t gonna be rehashing that game at class reunions 50 years from now. For some, it’ll be the highlight of their lives.
What memories they’ll take from it.
Playing in an NFL stadium before 25,000 fans. Celebrating on the field afterwards. Getting national headlines.
And that 14-year-old quarterback for Bellevue. That Eric Block. The kid was sensational the way he faked out the Spartans with his clever ball-handling.
And not just the Spartans. I had my binoculars on him and I often had trouble finding the ball.
I don’t know if the kid can pass or not because he didn’t put the ball in the air once. And the Wolverines still gained more than 450 yards.
It can be done. Teams can win football games without passing. Woody Hayes did it. Terry Ennis does it at Archbishop Murphy.
If only the Washington Huskies could do it.
Oh, yeah, I almost forgot. I’m supposed to be writing about those guys.
Sorry, I got so caught up in that high school game I couldn’t get it out of my mind when I stepped into Husky Stadium to watch Washington entertain Fresno State in the season opener Sunday afternoon.
Entertaining, it wasn’t. Not the Huskies anyway.
It you’re into snap judgements, you came away muttering, “My gosh, is there anybody on their schedule they can beat?”
There is. Maybe more teams than you might think.
The offense was bad. The passing game anyway.
Nobody expected it to be without flaws, not with two guys who had attempted only 25 career passes between them coming into the game. And it certainly had its imperfections in this 35-16 loss.
If only the Huskies could have run the ball all afternoon, as Bellevue did all Saturday night.
But, no, they had to go and throw it 48 times. And get picked off four times. And have two of those interceptions returned for touchdowns. And another one set up a touchdown.
Needless to say, starter Casey Paus – who threw three of those picks – and backup Isaiah Stanback have work to do. Stanback also needs to spend time on his ball-handling. One time he tucked the football into his running back’s stomach, started to pull it back out, got it caught on the guy’s pants and fumbled it.
It wasn’t loose long, though. Fresno’s Brian Morris picked it up and scored from 18 yards out.
You make those kind of mistakes, you’re gonna be crying in your beer late that night.
Paus and Stanback can only get better. They can’t get any worse.
Paus was all over the place with his passes. He threw high. He threw wide. I don’t recall, but he must have thrown one low, too. To wide open receivers, he did this. That’s part of the reason he didn’t connect on 21 of 39 passes.
He was a young Randy Johnson. The Big Unit got a whole lot better. Pray that Paus does too.
Passing isn’t the only thing the Huskies didn’t do well. Evan Knudson missed a couple of makeable field goals attempts (from 37 and 38 yards). And the next time he was supposed to go out on the field, he didn’t. Michael Braunstein did. And kicked the extra point after the first Husky touchdown.
Kicking “has been a problem,” coach Keith Gilbertson said.
It has helped lead to the downfall of teams. And coaches.
So has faulty defense. That wasn’t a problem for the Huskies on Sunday.
The defenders did a decent job. You might even describe it as good.
They held a veteran Fresno offense to 262 yards and one legitimate touchdown drive. And this is a Husky defense that had three pure freshmen get some playing time.
It had one kid who was so excited to be out there that he could hardly contain his emotions. In fact, linebacker Joe Lobendahn didn’t contain them.
“Nothing could hold me back,” said Lobendahn, who missed most of the 2003 season with a knee injury.
And nothing did. It seemed like every third time a tackle was made by the Huskies, Lobendahn’s name was announced.
Making up for all that lost time, he had 16 tackles (10 solos), including five for losses and one for a sack.
And he played part of the game with a neck stinger. “He’s really a tough guy,” Gilbertson said.
And a concerned guy. Concerned that the Husky defense didn’t do the same thing Fresno’s did. “If our offense can’t score,” he said, “we’ve got to find a way to score.”
That’s a sentiment that was echoed by defensive coordinator Phil Snow. “Their defense scored more points than our defense,” he said.
Stop feeling so darn guilty, coach.
Your guys’ primary responsibility is to stop the other guys from scoring. You’ve got a unit called offense that’s supposed to score points.
They’ve just got to stop giving the ball to the other team.
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