SEATTLE – To the great appreciation of many in the announced crowd of 63,225 at Husky Stadium Saturday, Isaiah Stanback trotted out onto the field in relief of starting quarterback Casey Paus early in the third quarter.
The move was made for two reasons. One, the coaching staff wanted to give Arizona a different look. As a running quarterback and great athlete who can be dangerous in option football, Stanback gives just that. He is the opposite of Paus, a classic dropback, pocket passer whose mobility is limited.
The second reason was that Paus was awful. He completed just 6-of-22 passes up to then in a 23-13 defeat to the Wildcats.
“I don’t know if it was possible to do any worse than that,” UW head coach Keith Gilbertson said. “We wanted to make a change and give the guy a chance, to see if he could get anything going. We really didn’t get anything from him.”
Stanback’s chance lasted a little more than a quarter. He was 3-for-10 passing for 33 yards and an interception. He also fumbled and ran four times for 8 yards.
Stanback, a sophomore, called it a low point in his career.
“I wasn’t me,” Stanback said. “I made bad decisions. It was like I wasn’t playing for the team or for myself. I wasn’t being myself. When I’m not myself, I hurt the team, because that’s what the team asks me to do, to be the playmaker that they know I can be.”
He was asked whether he wanted another chance.
“I do,” he said, “but I don’t think I deserve one right now. I didn’t give the coaches any reason to give me another chance.”
Paus was 13-for-37 passing for 164 yards and an interception. He was sacked four times. Fifty-seven of his passing yards came on a screen pass that Shelton Sampson broke with his blurring speed.
In other words, a dismal outing, one that led Paus to be at least as harsh on himself as Stanback was on himself. Only Paus’ self-critique comes from an entire season of disappointment.
Hoped to be Cody Pickett’s able replacement, Paus is completing 41.7 percent of his passes and has 11 interceptions to just three TD passes.
“This is a feeling that I’ve never felt before,” he said. “It’s eating me up inside. It’s hard to deal with because I know I can play better. I know the guys around me can play better. It’s just eating at me right now.”
Fake punt works: UW punter Sean Douglas fooled the Wildcats’ punt-return unit with a fake punt in the fourth quarter that he broke for 28 yards and a first down.
“We had been working on it for a while and trying to find a right time to use it,” Douglas said. “We used it today and it worked out for us. I was hoping it would get us the momentum back.”
Unfortunately for the Huskies, it didn’t. The drive ended four plays later on a Stanback fumble.
Johnson uses head in forced fumble: UW cornerback Derrick Johnson made a huge hit on Arizona wideout Syndric Steptoe in the first quarter that caused Steptoe to cough the ball up.
Johnson made a classic hit on Steptoe, wrapping him up and knocking the ball out with his helmet.
The fumble, recovered by linebacker Scott White, led to a Husky field goal.
“I was coming up, doing my job and I got lucky and made a big hit,” Johnson said. “I was trying not to miss the tackle and I went and blew him up. I don’t know how the ball got loose. I heard the crowd screaming, so I knew I must have done something good. It was in slow motion. It was a good hit, and it got me juiced up.”
Small healthy roster: Attrition, via injury, is the biggest reason Washington has 17 players on its two-deeps who are either true freshmen or redshirt freshmen. Six are true freshmen. Five freshmen are holding down starting jobs, including two true freshman, both on the defensive line. All four wideouts listed in the two-deeps are redshirt freshmen.
Nine Huskies have been ruled out this season because of surgery.
So it’s not the case, Gilbertson said, that he’s benching veterans in favor of young players, in order to give the young players game experience and sacrifice the present for the future.
“We’re playing a slug of young guys because that’s all we’ve got left,” Gilbertson said. “We don’t have an offensive captain that’s playing, that even suits up, that even goes to practice. So young guys are playing. Are they getting valuable experience? Yes. Did we try to win a game today? Of course.
“We don’t have any receivers. We play every receiver that we have. And we’ve taken enough guys out of redshirts with two games to go in the season.”
Short bursts: Arizona’s 23 points were the most the Wildcats have scored all season. The previous high was 21, against Northern Arizona in the season-opener … Washington led at halftime for the second time all season. The Huskies led San Jose State 7-6 at the half Oct. 9 … When Evan Knudson kicked a 42-yard field goal in the second quarter, it marked the second first time all season the Huskies have scored twice in a quarter. Washington scored 24 points in the first quarter against UCLA Sept. 18.
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