SEATTLE — Eighty-seven yards for the California offense to score a potentially game-tying touchdown.
Eighty-seven yards for a maligned Washington defense to hold its ground.
With the Huskies leading 31-23 in the final few minutes, a California TD and two-point conversion would likely
send Saturday’s game to overtime. And when the Golden Bears marched from their 13-yard line to a first-and-goal at the UW 2-yard line with 42 seconds remaining, that scenario seemed likely.
Instead, a Husky defense that has given up yards and points in great bunches this season pulled off a last-minute goal-line stand that should rank among the best in Husky Stadium history.
Four times the Golden Bears tried to reach the end zone and four times they were denied. A first-down pass was incomplete. A second-down run gained a yard to the 1. A third-down run lost a yard.
When a fourth-down pass dropped incomplete, the Huskies had held on for another dramatic victory, their third at home this season. And in a season of scant UW defensive highlights, this was a dandy.
“Those are the kind of things that define a team about who you are and what your identity is,” said linebacker Cort Dennison, who led the Huskies with 11 tackles.
“You can either bow down and hope to stop them on a two-point conversion, or you can rise up and have a goal-line stand. … We hung in there and kept fighting and got the win.” Dennison said.
“A great goal-line stand,” said UW defensive coordinator Nick Holt. “We knocked them back. (California) tried to run the ball twice, and it was just a phenomenal job by our guys knocking the (offensive) linemen back.”
Unfortunately, Holt added, California’s last march “got down to the 2-yard line. But our guys played their butts off. They really buckled down and won the game right there. … We stopped them when we needed to. First and goal at the 2 and we stopped them. Stuffed them. It was fantastic.”
The Huskies won despite a day of defensive adversity. Injuries took a toll, with the most serious being a neck injury suffered by starting inside linebacker John Timu late in the third quarter. He left the field on a stretcher and was taken by ambulance to the University of Washington Medical Center, where he was to be kept overnight for observation.
“The results are coming back normal from the hospital,” head coach Steve Sarkisian said. “He was moving all his limbs on the field. It was definitely precautionary with his neck, but you have to take those things as seriously as you can. … All signs are good so far.”
Seeing Timu taken off the field seemed to inspire the other Husky defenders.
Said linebacker Garret Gilliland, “Cort, being the leader he is, said ‘C’mon, let’s do this for him.’ (Timu) is obviously a great asset to our team … and if anything it kind of rallied us and pumped us up. We were saying, ‘Let’s win this for him. Let’s get this victory.'”
Other injured UW defenders on Saturday were cornerback Gregory Ducre (concussion) and defensive end Hau’oli Jamora (sprained knee).
And when each player went out “we just put in the next guy and they did a good job,” Holt said.
Washington’s final defensive statistics were less than glowing. The Huskies gave up 457 yards against California to push their season total of yards yielded to 1,813 — over 1 mile in just four games.
The Bears produced just 108 yards on the ground, but quarterback Zach Maynard completed 23-of-43 passes for 349 yards, including a 90-yard scoring strike to Keenan Allen on the visitors’ fourth play from scrimmage against a broken UW defensive coverage.
“There were a lot of mistakes out there … but the effort was phenomenal,” Holt said. “The defense has a lot of character.”
On California’s final drive, “we knew as soon as we went out that it was on us,” said UW safety Justin Glenn. “So we said, ‘Let’s go out there and win the ballgame.’ We ended up getting that job done, even though it wasn’t as pretty as we would’ve planned.”
When the Bears had first-and-goal at the 2, a touchdown seemed almost certain. “And I’ll bet that was what most people were thinking,” Glenn said with a wry smile.
“But we looked around and told each other, ‘We have to do this. It’s now or ever. If we’re going to win this game we have to make some stops.’ And we were able to do that. We ended up buckling down with a goal-line stand and got the victory.”
“I’m really proud of the guys,” Dennison said. “We played all four quarters. It’s not about the first three, it’s about how you finish. And when big plays had to be made, big players stepped up and made those plays.”
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