SEATTLE – The crowd was booing, the offense was stagnant and the stats were lopsided. The positive talk that had surrounded the Washington football team since the Fresno State victory was just that, talk.
And then some kind of magic rolled across Lake Washington and into Husky Stadium, and the guarded hope of a week ago started to materialize into a stunning reality.
Facing a 16-point deficit in a game that wasn’t nearly that close, the Husky football team not only turned the game around, but maybe the fortunes of the entire program.
The Husky defense shut UCLA down in the second half and the Isaiah Stanback-led offense came alive after a horrible start as Washington stunned the Bruins 29-19 in front of a raucous crowd of 58,255 fans at Husky Stadium Saturday.
The magic was completed when junior linebacker Dan Howell intercepted a Ben Olson pass and returned it 33 yards for a touchdown with 6:02 to play, putting the Huskies up by 10. Howell missed last week’s game while attending the funeral of his father Keith, who died on Sept. 10 due to complications following heart surgery.
“He’s always with me,” said Howell, who had his first career interception. “I felt him with me on the field from beginning to end. …It’s a blessing to have that feeling. I know he’s watching me and I know he’s keeping a close eye on his boy.”
The comeback was the seventh-largest in Washington history and the second-largest home comeback ever. It also moved the Huskies to an improbable 3-1 record for the first time since 2003, the same year Washington last won its Pacific-10 Conference opener. The win broke a five-game losing streak to UCLA (0-1 Pac-10, 2-1 overall), which had defeated the Huskies eight of the past nine times they played.
“For our young men to be able to come back in the manner they came back in was really excellent,” Washington head coach Tyrone Willingham said. “Our offense showed a lot of courage and our defense positioned us to have a chance to win the football game by just hanging in there.”
The victory was one of the more remarkable turnarounds in recent Husky history, as Washington seemed completely overmatched for the first 20 minutes. The Huskies didn’t get a first down until there was 6:35 remaining in the first half, and they followed that by losing a fumble, one of four turnovers in the game for the UW.
But Washington’s offense finally caught up with its defense when the Huskies switched from a two-back offense to a spread offense, giving Stanback more room to operate. In the second half, Stanback was 11-for-16 with two touchdowns and also ran for 45 yards.
The turnaround really started late in the second quarter, when Stanback led the Huskies on a nine-play, 92-yard drive that culminated with a 23-yard touchdown pass to Sonny Shackelford with 1:05 to go before halftime. Stanback was 5-for-7 for 94 yards on the drive and the touchdown gave Washington a bit of momentum going into halftime. A loud halftime speech kept that drive going.
“We weren’t playing good,” said Stanback, who finished the day 18-for-29 for 200 yards and three touchdowns. “We knew it was because of (the offense). …We put ourselves in bad situations and put too much stress on our defense. We got together at halftime and said let’s go out and play.”
Willingham would not say exactly what he told the team at halftime, but paraphrased: “We need to get moving.”
That’s just what happened, as the spread formation opened up the field for Washington. The Huskies went 65 yards on the first possession of the second half as Stanback again found Shackelford, this time for a 28-yard touchdown to get within two.
UCLA later used a 79-yard punt return to start a drive at the UW 9, but for the fourth time in the game, Washington’s defense held the Bruins to a field goal despite being in the red zone.
“That’s huge for us,” defensive coordinator Kent Baer said. “For us to keep them out of the end zone, that keeps us in the game. There’s a huge difference between three points and six points.”
“When we get into the red zone, we have to be able to convert for a score,” UCLA running back Chris Markey said.
Washington’s offense finally rewarded its defense midway through the fourth quarter when Stanback faked a handoff and rolled to his right, connecting with tight end Johnie Kirton for a 4-yard touchdown catch. Kirton then caught the two-point conversion and the Huskies led 22-19 with 7:32 to go.
Three plays into UCLA’s next drive, Howell stepped in front of an Olson pass for an interception and raced into the end zone.
It was the biggest play in a dominant second-half effort by the Husky defense. Washington held UCLA to 83 yards in the second half.
“We started executing,” Willingham said. “Our guys kept working, started executing and once you’re executing, good things start to happen.”
And now, Washington is surprisingly just three wins away from being bowl-eligible. That’s big news for a team that had won just three games over the past two years combined, and it came because of an effort most of the Huskies agreed they would not have won a year ago.
“We didn’t know how to handle a game like this last year,” offensive guard Stanley Daniels said. “We would have folded and moved on to the next game. This team is different. This team really believes it can win every game, and we’re proving that.”
“It feels great but we’re not happy with winning three games,” said linebacker Scott White, who led the team with 11 tackles. “We’re going for the whole thing.”
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