’Tis the season to erase anguish of final defeat

By John Sleeper

Herald Writer

SEATTLE – In the time following the three losses the University of Washington football team had this season, no one went through more self-examination than coach Rick Neuheisel.

Although Neuheisel says he’s proud of an 8-3 regular-season finish, a second trip to the Holiday Bowl in three seasons and victories against three teams ranked in the top 10, he said he regularly goes through a period of guilt after each defeat.

He did that this season following resounding defeats to UCLA, Oregon State and Miami.

Washington began preparation Friday for Texas in the Holiday Bowl on Dec. 28, approximately a month after the Huskies lost to top-ranked Miami, 65-7. Whether the pattern of bouncing back after a defeat stays the course remains to be seen.

“We understand the occupation we find ourselves in,” Neuheisel said. “We get rewarded for working at it. What I do when things don’t go well is I try to figure out what I can do better. Rather than just say, ‘Well, that’s the way it goes.’ I think we just have to internalize the blame. By doing that, I think you arrive at a solution faster.”

The Huskies followed up their defeat to UCLA (35-13) with a 31-28 victory over Arizona. After a 49-24 loss to Oregon State, they bounced back against Washington State with a 26-14 victory.

For the UCLA game, Neuheisel said he decided to dispense with the Huskies’ option attack to protect quarterback Taylor Barton, who found himself in the driver’s seat after Cody Pickett separated his throwing shoulder against USC the week before.

Faced with a relentlessly attacking UCLA defense, the UW coaching staff also tried to protect its inexperienced offensive tackles by using a lot of two-tight-end sets.

“It was an uphill day,” Neuheisel said. “We got ourselves into a one-dimensional game, which cost us.”

Defensively, the UCLA game brought on a new emphasis on gap control. Tailback DeShaun Foster ran for 301 yards that day, but game film revealed that he likely wouldn’t have had the UW defense been better prepared.

“I looked back and said, ‘How did I prepare us for that game?’” Neuheisel said. “Those are the kinds of things that I address with myself – how I got our coaches ready for that challenge.”

The three games that followed – victories against Arizona, Arizona State and Stanford – saw a gradual improvement.

Then came Oregon State.

“We were in a position to win the conference,” Neuheisel said. “I immediately started talking about Oregon State. I said that we cannot fall prey to the same disease that plagued the other teams that all of a sudden became the frontrunner. I wonder if I said it too quickly.

“There also was a hope for a rest. We’d been through a three-game stretch – Arizona, winning with 13 seconds left; Arizona State, winning on the last play of the game; and a huge game against Stanford, who had just beaten Oregon and UCLA in successive weeks. We felt great about ourselves, and then we were going to play Oregon State, which had just gotten beat by USC and only scored 10 points. Psychologically, we got into a feeling that if we just keep playing, we’ll get ourselves a win. There was a hope that we were playing a team that probably wasn’t going to a bowl. Maybe we didn’t have to go out and play with everything we’ve got.”

So it was a lesson. Then there was Miami. The rationalization, Neuheisel said, was that the Huskies had just come off an emotional high of winning the Apple Cup. Add to that: Washington hadn’t played a regular-season game after having played Washington State since 1948.

“There was a conditioned response that this was vacation,” Neuheisel said. “There’s an exodus from school because everybody’s going home for (Thanksgiving) vacation. On the other side of the country, (Miami) is sharpening their teeth because they’ve been waiting to play Washington since their defeat here in September of 2000. We got into a hornet’s nest.”

The trick to bouncing back from Miami, Neuheisel said, is to rebuild the team’s confidence by remembering that Washington beat Michigan, Stanford and Washington State, all of which is ranked ahead of the Huskies.

“I don’t feel like we have to apologize to anybody for how hard we played,” Neuheisel said. “Can we improve? Absolutely. Is it my job to make sure that we do? Absolutely. And I’m anxious to get that started.”

Longhorns chided: At Texas, you win or you’re zeroes. There’s nothing in between. The Longhorns are 10-2, are ranked No. 9 in the nation, have won 37 games in the last four years under coach Mack Brown, went to the Big 12 championship game and are making their second straight Holiday Bowl appearance.

So why is virtually everyone wearing burnt orange wringing their hands and crying about a horrible season?

“We get moree publicity here than anybody in America,” Brown said. “I’m not sure why, but we do. We get more people excited or angry at us than anybody else in America. When people have an opinion about Texas, it’s either really strong for the positive or really strong for the negative. Nobody’s in between with us.”

That’s what happens in a program that annually sells 55,000 season tickets, sells out every game in its 84,000-seat stadium and has the fifth-highest all-time winning percentage of any school in the nation.

“It comes with the school,” Brown said. “Coaches understand that it comes with this job. There are so many positives. We as coaches and players have the same expectations that the fans do. We’re hurting when we lose, also.”

Stevens undecided about NFL: Although he announced before the season that this, his junior year, likely would be his last at Washington, tight end Jerramy Stevens apparently is giving a return to Montlake some second thought.

Stevens, who has refused to talk to the media since halfway through the season except immediately after games, broke his foot in the second game of the season and missed six weeks. He has caught just 10 passes after catching 43 last season.

Neuheisel admits to occasionally giving Stevens a recruiting pitch. He also would like to have Stevens decide one way or the other before the team leaves for San Diego next Friday.

“What will happen is that there will be an onslaught of attention, especially by those looking to represent him,” Neuheisel said. “I’d prefer that done before we get there so that he can play a good football game.”

Green likes Aggies: The lone Husky from Texas grew up rooting against the Longhorns. Reserve safety Rod Green, from Victoria, Texas, was a Texas A&M fan and would like nothing better than to disrupt the Longhorn offense any way he can.

“I like their uniforms, but I’m an Aggie,” Green said. “There’s one guy at Texas from my high school and I played against a couple more, but I never talk to them anymore.”

Williams will go: Former UW safety Curtis Williams, paralyzed from a helmet-to-helmet collision at Stanford last season, will attend the Holiday Bowl, Neuheisel said.