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Inside The Huskies

Even With Big Win, Huskies Can't Crack AP Poll

Jedd Fisch's team remains just outside the Top 25 looking in.
Dan Raley|
Eastern Washington players gang tackle UW running back Trey Cooley.
Eastern Washington players gang tackle UW running back Trey Cooley. | Dave Sizer photo

By roughing up Eastern Washington, the University of Washington football team on Sunday might have expected to return to the Associated Press Top 25 after a one-week absence, but it didn't happen.

Even with four ranked teams losing over the weekend, the Huskies (3-0) remained one slot outside of the poll, receiving 107 points to trail No. 25 Houston (2-1), a 28-26 loser to Texas Tech, by just 10 points.

After a pair of underwhelming victories over Washington State and Utah State, the UW wasn't rewarded for its much more punishing 48-16 win over Eastern Washington on Saturday night in Seattle.

Jedd Fisch's team began the season at No. 17, but quickly dropped to 19 and then all the way out of the AP rankings with 14- and 2-point victories over teams after they were favored to beat them by three and four touchdowns.

Who says the voters don't pay any attention to the fine details?

The Huskies will have to wait another week to become ranked team again just as they get set to open Big Ten Conference play against unranked the Minnesota Gophers (2-1) on Saturday night in Montlake with kickoff at 8 p.m.

This particular UW team has been hampered by a spate of injuries, a realiance on an overabundance of freshmen as starters and simply underachieving against lesser opponents who were meant to be embarrrassed as automatic victories.

Instead, WSU and Utah State, both Pac-12 teams in the reconfigured league, gave the Huskies far more strenuous outings than envisioned.

The push for this UW team will be in getting everyone running on all cylinders with games coming against No. 12 USC (3-0) on the road and No. 17 Iowa (3-0) at home immediately following this weekend's Minnesota outing.

The Huskies and the Gophers haven't played in nearly 50 years, with the UW losing the last meeting 19-17 in Minneapolis in 1977 on its way to the Rose Bowl to upset Michigan 27-20.

Fisch's team, while starting five freshmen, still might be a year away from having everyone ready to play for high stakes, such as re-enter the College Football Playoff conversation.

Donovan Robinson and Jacob Manu celebrate a big hit against Eastern.
Donovan Robinson and Jacob Manu celebrate a big hit against Eastern. | Dave Sizer photo

Against Eastern, the Huskies started just three players, linebacker Jacob Manu and offensive linemen Drew Azzopardi and Geirean Hatchett, who will use up their eligibility once this season ends and move on.

"It's a young team," Fisch has repeated over and over.

That said, a win over Minnesota undoubtedly would return the Huskies to the AP Top 25 and a victory over USC in Los Angeles a week later would give them a chance to make a big jump up the rankings and finally draw some attention to themselves.

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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