About this time last year, the University of Washington football team walked into an unfamiliar situation against a familiar opponent.
Tonight, quite the opposite awaits the Huskies.
Having already experienced what it feels like to play in a bowl game, and making the most of it, UW is back for more. But the Huskies (7-5) won’t have the benefit of knowing their opponent this time around.
UW has not faced Baylor since 1965. In fact, it’s unlikely any of the current Huskies have lined up against a single member of the 15th-ranked Bears (9-3) at any level.
“It’s fun,” UW junior center Drew Schaefer said. “You always like playing out of conference and kind of seeing how the Pac-12 and the Big 12 would match up.”
Baylor’s 119-man roster includes 108 players from the state of Texas. The only one who has played a college game in the state of Washington is defensive back Demetri Goodson, and that was on the basketball court as a member of the Gonzaga Bulldogs (a foot injury has limited Goodson to four games this season, and it appears unlikely he’ll be on the field tonight). Not a single UW player hails from Texas.
Baylor coach Art Briles said earlier this month that he’s only crossed paths with the UW coaching staff once on the recruiting trail, and that was in pursuit of a current high school quarterback who eventually picked the Huskies.
Like Steve Sarkisian’s Huskies, Briles and the Bears snapped a long postseason drought last December. But Baylor came up short in that game, a 38-14 loss to Illinois in the Texas Bowl one year ago today.
While the Huskies might have had experience as a bowl winner — they bounced back from a regular-season loss to Nebraska by beating the Cornhuskers in last year’s Holiday Bowl — Baylor is using last season’s underwhelming bowl performance as a motivator.
“For us being back this year, it’s a little different mentality,” Briles said. “Last year, we didn’t finish strong at the end of the season. A lot of that was due to who we played. It was the first time in 16 years we’d been to a bowl game, so everyone was excited to be there.
“Our focus and our vision is quite a bit different than it was last year. That doesn’t mean the outcome is going to be different, but our approach, certainly, is different than it was a year ago.”
Before leaving town for San Antonio, the Huskies said they hoped the experience from last postseason would help them this time around.
“It’s not the same bowl, but we know what to expect — all the activities and having to sit around at the hotel and play with your teammates,” junior running back Chris Polk said. “It’s just about knowing when to have fun and not, and not letting that affect your preparation.”
Sarkisian said last year’s Holiday Bowl victory helped propel the Huskies toward another winning season this time around.
“Winning that game served as the biggest motivator for: ‘Man, that sure was fun, we want to get back there,’” he said earlier this month in a pre-bowl conference call.
What the Huskies learned most of all from last year’s bowl game was that there would be plenty of distractions leading up to game day. They said before leaving for San Antonio that none of that part of game week would surprise them.
“We know this is a business trip,” said wide receiver Jermaine Kearse, one of 12 UW starters from the 2010 Holiday Bowl who are likely to be back in the lineup tonight. “We’re going to enjoy the moment of playing in the Alamo Bowl, but ultimately our goal is to win the game.”
Quarterback Keith Price said the Huskies were a little bit wide-eyed last year but said this time those emotions are “definitely going to be gone.”
The most obvious difference this year, other than the Xs and Os that include a huge question mark as to how the Huskies might contain Heisman Trophy winner Robert Griffin III, lies in geography. The Baylor fans had a short drive of about three hours from Waco, Texas, to San Antonio, so UW fans are likely to be outnumbered at the Alamodome.
Earlier this month, Sarkisian said that didn’t bother him.
“They’ll find their way to San Antonio this year,” he said of UW’s fans. “I think they’ll represent. There will be quite a bit of purple in San Antonio this year in the stadium for the ballgame.”
The truth is that the Huskies don’t really know what to expect from a support standpoint. But they do know what the whole bowl experience is about — and that’s something no UW team since 2002 could say heading into a postseason game.
“We’re a little more familiar,” UW’s Schaefer said. “There’s no more surprises. We’re kind of familiar with the structure. … You kind of learn from last year, what worked and what didn’t, and you correct it this year.”
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