SEATTLE – Whoever originally came up with the axiom that defense wins football games – Lombardi or Aristotle or some other bloke – would have loved what happened at Husky Stadium Saturday.
Credit the stoppers for this one, a 29-19 Washington victory over UCLA. The same UW defense that resembled 11 pastry chefs early in the game, swarmed, scratched and dominated in the last three quarters.
In the most remarkable effort by a Washington defense in years, UCLA managed 70 yards, three points and gave away three turnovers after the opening quarter. In the last 31 minutes, 5 seconds, the Huskies outscored the Bruins, 29-3.
In doing so, Washington gained a victory in a Pac-10 opener in which few would have given the Huskies a snowball’s chance in Guam after the first quarter. Early, the defense was ineffective, but it still sparkled in comparison to the UW offense and special teams, which were horrible and awful, respectively.
In that way, the game resembled the Huskies’ previous contest, a 21-20 victory over Fresno State, in which Washington took sizable lumps early, came back and pulled out a win at the end.
“I think I’ve got to find a better way for our guys to come out of the locker room,” Washington coach Tyrone Willingham said. “Maybe I’ll have them walk out backward.”
The defense got little help from the offense and special teams, both of which contributed four turnovers and too often left the defense stranded uncomfortably in the shadows of its own goal posts.
Even in allowing the Bruins to score 16 first-quarter points, Husky defenders should be given a group Pac-10 Defensive Player of the Week award for allowing three field goals instead of three touchdowns. The Bruins’ only six-pointer came in the opening frame after they recovered a fumbled punt attempt by Sean Douglas at the Husky 6.
So thank the defense that it wasn’t a 28-0 Bruin lead. It could easily have been and probably would have been under similar circumstances the past two seasons.
Not this time.
In fact, the Bruins rang up just 10 points on four UCLA drives that started on the Husky 6-yard line (on the above-mentioned fumbled punt snap), the UW 31 (a UCLA punt after the offense lost 8 yards on its “drive”), the UW 30 (ending on an interception by UW corner Mesphin Forrester) and the Husky 9-yard line.
The last Washington stop resulted in the Bruins’ only points after the first quarter, a 22-yard field goal by Justin Medlock.
“We don’t like anybody scoring on us, whether it’s a TD or a field goal,” UW defensive end Greyson Gunheim said. “But if they’re going to score, a field goal is a lot better than a touchdown.”
Put that score on the Husky punt team. Douglas got off one of his booming blasts, a 64-yarder that Terrence Austin gathered at his own 12 and ran back to the UW 9.
Were it not for Gunheim, though, Austin would have scored to give the Bruins a 21-14 lead. The 265-pounder somehow ran down the speedy, 162-pound Austin from behind, pulled him down and took his place on the D-line without needing an oxygen tent.
“That was probably the play of the day,” defensive coordinator Kent Baer said. “Tremendous. That’s what hustle does for you. That’s how you should play the game. To ask a defensive lineman to be on the punt team, then watch him run the guy down, that’s special.”
That’s the word. Special.
It’s special when Dan Howell scores on an interception after he missed the previous game to bury his dead father.
It’s special when a team that had won three games the previous two seasons gets rewarded for hard work and sacrifice while surrounded by a sea of doubters.
It’s special when a program formerly devoid of confidence because of events they had nothing to do with starts lighting a fire with two straight victories.
And it’s special when a head coach, maligned by the media, alums and fans for stubbornly sticking to doing things his own methodical and colorless way start yukking it up with the media.
“We did what we needed to do and that’s all you can say,” UW linebacker Tahj Bomar said. “All that matters is to win. We’ll go look at the film and correct our mistakes, but overall, we got the ‘W’ and that’s really all that matters.”
Maybe one early correction Saturday at Arizona would be to exit the locker room walking backward.
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