Monday, November 17, 1997
For Huskies, surprise loss was tough pill to swallow
FOOTBALL:
Besides the game, they lose their pride and a
long-awaited Rose Bowl berthBy Mark Dittmer
Daily Bruin Staff
No one thought this was in the cards for the 1997 Washington
Huskies.
Many foresaw blowouts  the Huskies were expected to be
involved in plenty of blowouts. After all, they looked to be in a
class by themselves in the Pac-10, the only team in the conference
with legitimate national championship hopes.
To be on the losing side of a blowout? That just doesn’t happen
to Washington.
But it happened on Saturday.
UCLA crushed the Huskies, 52-28, and the game wasn’t as close as
the score indicates. After taking a 20-14 lead, the Huskies
watched, stunned, as the Bruins scored 38 straight points,
trampling not only the Huskies’ pride but also their Rose Bowl
hopes: The loss mathematically eliminated Washington from the Rose
Bowl.
"We knew we had a real good football team, and today they
destroyed us, plain and simple," Husky wide receiver Fred Coleman
said. "They destroyed everything we had."
This was supposed to be Washington’s year. A team loaded with
senior stars with national acclaim, as juniors last year, those
seniors had fallen one game short of the Rose Bowl, and many
thought they would be unstoppable this year.
But after Saturday’s game, those players left the Rose Bowl for
the last time as fallen warriors.
Senior free safety Tony Parrish was first-team all-conference as
a junior. But on Saturday, he was beaten in a Cade McNown-to-Jim
McElroy touchdown pass, and McNown later jumped over Parrish at the
goal line on a touchdown run.
Offensive linemen Benji Olson and Olin Kreutz, both seniors,
were first-team all-conference last year. Olson, in fact, was a
first-team All-American. But on Saturday, the UCLA defense shredded
the Huskies’ line for five sacks.
Senior linebacker Jason Chorak was the Pac-10’s Defensive Player
of the Year as a junior. He made his presence felt early on
Saturday, hurrying McNown on a few plays and twice tackling Bruin
tailback Skip Hicks behind the line of scrimmage.
But Hicks would eventually make the Huskies’ vaunted linebacking
corps look bad, netting 147 yards on 25 carries.
And senior receivers Coleman and Pathon have both earned
all-conference honors as underclassmen. The duo was formidable on
Saturday, combining with 18 catches for 219 yards. But they found
no solace in their own statistics.
"It hurts because there’s no Rose Bowl," Coleman said. "That’s
the main thing here, (the) Rose Bowl and now there’s no Rose Bowl,
so that does hurt a lot."
A four-year career at Washington without a trip to the Rose
Bowl: That’s as hard for these seniors to stomach as being on the
tail end of a blowout loss in a conference game.
Most of these senior Huskies began their careers in 1993 or
1994, and they were coming to a program that had won three Rose
Bowls in a row from 1990 to 1992, and won a share of the national
championship in 1991.
But in 1993 and 1994, the program was on probation, ineligible
for bowl games and penalized 10 scholarships per year.
Still, through these tough times, Washington never lost its
stature as the top dog of the Pac-10 conference. From 1993 to 1995,
the Huskies’ record was 21-12-1. And in 1996, the Huskies lost to
conference champ Arizona State by three points, finishing second in
the conference at 7-1.
This year’s Huskies lost to Nebraska early on, but stayed in the
top 10 into November, winning five in a row to stand at 7-1, ranked
sixth in the nation. But then the Huskies lost to Oregon last week,
31-28, with both their starting running back and starting
quarterback on the sidelines nursing injuries.
Still, with a win against UCLA and another win next week against
Washington State, the Huskies would have been Rose Bowl bound.
Instead, they lost not only their chance at a conference
championship, but some pride in the process.
"It’s the worst (loss) I’ve been a part of," Coleman said. "We
lost to Notre Dame a couple years ago pretty bad, but (UCLA) is a
Pac-10 team, and we’re supposed to be the powerhouse in the Pac-10,
and today they proved that we wasn’t."
After the game, disappointment and disgust prevailed in the
Husky locker room, as players answered questions like, "Do you
think about what might have been this year?" and "Your comments on
why things seemed to fall apart in the second half?" Emotional
responses ranged from sadness to anger.
"All that preseason hype and all that … right now at this
point in time it doesn’t really mean shit, does it?" Pathon asked,
referring to the Huskies’ No. 3 preseason ranking.
"I could care less what our rankings are," sophomore cornerback
Melvin Miller said. "We should have went out and won the game. I
don’t care if we’re ranked 100. (The Pac-10 race) came down to
these last games. We didn’t get ’em. (They were) for the
Roses."
"When you look back a couple weeks ago we were No. 6 in the
country, and now we’re number nothin’ in the country," Coleman
said, "and that does hurt a lot."
"Anytime I lose a game, anytime I lose anything, it’s hard for
me," Pathon said. "No matter what. I think it’s very tough for our
team right now to accept this loss. But I mean, we lost so what can
you do but accept it and move on?"
Now Husky seniors like Pathon have one regular-season game
remaining in their careers. It’s against Washington State for the
Apple Cup, the trophy that goes to the winner of the intrastate
rivalry. For Washington State, a win could mean the Rose Bowl. For
Washington, the game is for pride.
"This is going to be gut-check time," sophomore quarterback
Brock Huard said of the upcoming game. "For confidence, pride, for
team togetherness."
Though Huard will most likely have another chance at the Rose
Bowl (provided he doesn’t leave early for the pros), his pride was
as much on the line as anyone’s.
The most efficient passer in the nation until today, Huard was
sacked five times, all in the second half, and after coming up
short late on third down late in the fourth quarter and being hit
on the play, Huard lay there, for an extra moment, face down on the
turf.
"We’re beaten but we’re not broken," Huard said afterwards.
"This one stinks, but we’ve got to bounce back and see the kind of
team we really are."
The Huskies aren’t as sure of what they are as they used to
be.
"We never get used to losing," sophomore linebacker Marques
Hairston said. "That is unacceptable at Washington."
JUSTIN WARREN/Daily Bruin
Skip Hicks (below) scores his fourth touchdown for the day,
which gave him the Pac-10 season record of 24 touchdowns. Shaun
Williams (above) smashes Washington’s Brock Huard to the
ground.