Inside The Huskies

For UW Football, It's 2 Weeks to Fall Camp, Maybe 4 Months to CFP

Pro Football Focus likes the Huskies as one of the postseason contenders.
Dan Raley|
For UW Football, It's 2 Weeks to Fall Camp, Maybe 4 Months to CFP
For UW Football, It's 2 Weeks to Fall Camp, Maybe 4 Months to CFP

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Washington Huskies

University of Washington football players have just two weeks before they pull on the pads and things get serious again. Two weeks of hanging out at the beach. Going home to see mom. Hiding from strength coach Ron McKeefery to give their bodies a rest.

Then it's time for fall camp — does anyone remember the long discarded and inhumane two-a-days? — and goal-setting and the beginning of what could be a special season. More special than last year's special season. 

Remember the Alamo? Of course, everyone does. Consider the playoff domino effects from that one: the 27-20 victory over Texas was program payback to Steve Sarkisian for leaving Montlake with unfinished business, which led to Chris Petersen, which led to the UW's College Football Playoff appearance. 

Speaking of the CFP, Pro Football Focus likes the Huskies' chances as one of 15 teams entering fall camp with serious postseason possibilities. Now if this was a year from now, all but three of these candidates would qualify for the first ever College Football dirty dozen playoff, the long overdue expanded bracket guaranteed to excite people no end from coast to coast.

However, we all have to put up with one more archaic football Final Four only — the final one — and it would be a true badge of honor for the Huskies, or any other Pac-12 football team, to advance under these limited circumstances in four months.

Four is the magic number. Yes, there's more regarding that digit.

PPF likes the Huskies as one of four conference teams, alongside Oregon, USC and Utah, with a legitimate shot at making the narrowed-down playoff. It questions only the UW schedule-making, concluding the following: 

"The only concern for this team is a difficult schedule. Washington has very few cakewalks and will be tested just about every other week. The Huskies start off a tough non-conference schedule with Boise State and Michigan State. It won’t get any easier in conference play, either, as they face the four other top teams in the Pac-12 in Oregon, USC, Utah and Oregon State. As good as this roster is, it’s hard to imagine it losing fewer than two of those games."

The equally encouraging news in PFF's estimation is the repeatedly criticized Pac-12 has four serious CFP contenders, same as the SEC (Alabama, Georgia, LSU and super cheaters Tennessee) and more than than the Big Ten (Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State), the ACC (Clemson, Florida State, North Carolina) and the Big 12 (Texas).

Conspicuously missing from PFF's list of heavyweights are the likes of Notre Dame, Oklahoma, Florida, TCU, Miami, Oklahoma State, Kansas State and Wisconsin, all almost always big bowl contenders.

Now let the hand-fighting and mud-slinging begin in deciding football's four on the floor leading into 2024.

You can read PFF's story here or on the above Twitter link. 

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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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