SEATTLE — The first time the 2010 University of Washington football team played a game on its home turf, the Huskies quickly fell into a 10-0 hole against the underdogs from Syracuse.
A week later, with UW playing at Husky Stadium again, Nebraska needed less than five minutes to build up a 14-0 lead.
Then came last week, when the Huskies traveled to USC and watched the host Trojans march down the field for touchdown on the opening drive before UW rallied for a 32-31 victory.
In each of the past three games, UW’s opponents have scored first. Twice, they’ve also scored second. It’s not exactly a recipe for success, and yet the Huskies have won two of those three games.
“We don’t panic,” linebacker Cort Dennison said. “We understand there’s four quarters to football every week. If the game was played in the first quarter, then obviously we wouldn’t have a good game. But coach (Steve Sarkisian) keeps telling us every day that the game’s played in the fourth quarter, (that) it’s finished in the fourth quarter.”
When UW returns to Husky Stadium while trying to start a new home winning streak today, the Huskies are hoping to get off to that ever-elusive fast start.
“I don’t want to have to keep looking up at the scoreboard and we are down seven, down 10, and we come storming back,” Sarkisian said this week as his team prepared for tonight’s game against Arizona State. “I would like to get off to a good start. That doesn’t mean you win or lose if you start well, but we’d like to.”
Part of UW’s problem, oddly, has been based on good luck. The Huskies (2-2) have won the coin toss in three of their four games, have deferred every time, and watched somewhat helplessly as two of those opponents — Syracuse and USC — went on game-opening touchdown drives. The strategy in deferring is to get the ball at the beginning of the second half, yet the early deficits have often made that plan somewhat counterproductive.
Opponents have averaged 62.7 yards and 2.7 first downs on opening drives in the past three games, as compared to 31.5 and 1.5 the rest of the game.
Playing from behind has put the UW offense in bad positions this season, but the Huskies have taken it all in stride.
“We always feel like if they score, we need to answer back,” senior receiver D’Andre Goodwin said. “We don’t look at it like being down 7-0. We just know what we have to do and do our jobs.”
Just as important as starting fast is getting back into the win column at home. The Huskies had a 6-2 home mark under Sarkisian heading into the Nebraska game, then got run out of the building against the Cornhuskers.
Since that game, Sarkisian has been working hard on the team’s psyche. He spent the bye week that followed the loss rebuilding the team’s confidence, and after the win over USC on Saturday continued to feed the egos.
Sarkisian admitted earlier this week that he may erred in how he handled his 2009 team after a big upset over the Trojans. His strategy was to bring the players back to earth, so to speak, and they responded by getting blown out at Stanford the next week.
“I think that was the wrong approach by me,” he said Monday. “That one’s on me. Where we’re at in beating SC on the road in the way we did, we’re on earth. Let’s stay there. Let’s not go down to the depths of hell. Let’s stay where we are supposed to be.”
Sarkisian said later in the week that the approach seemed to be working.
“All in all, we’re confident in our ability, and that’s how we practiced,” he said Thursday night.
Whether or not that finally leads to a fast start will be determined tonight.
What this year’s Huskies have shown is that even a slow start doesn’t mean disaster.
“The game is four quarters long,” UW offensive coordinator Doug Nussmeier said. “Nobody says that you have to start fast. Obviously, everybody would like to start fast, but you have to play four quarters.
“The better football teams you play, and the closer games are, the better teams win in the fourth quarter. That’s what you’ve got to do, you’ve got to learn to finish.”
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