Road to 1991 Perfection: Gambling UW Defense Made Sun Devils Unrecognizable

The 1991 University of Washington defense was truly frightening for opponents. Downright scary. Too radical for the times.

The Huskies put 11 guys on the line of scrimmage, no one in pass coverage, and it was send everyone upfield with their hair on fire.

Teams didn't know how to respond to this. No answer. No clue.

In the middle of all of this mayhem was Steve Emtman flinging people around like King Kong preparing to climb a Manhattan skyscraper.

Husky linebackers became Emtman's best friends. They had unbelievable free lanes to the football. They had huge stats because of him.

It was either double-team Emtman or get totally destroyed by him.

Opposing teams more often raised a white flag, with Arizona State in week 8 was a leading example of this, falling behind 31-0 at half before losing 44-16.

"Some teams got very conservative against us," said Chris Tormey, 1991 UW linebackers coach. "It was like a circle-the-wagons mentality."

This is another in series of vignettes about the UW's 1991 national championship football team, supplementing the conversation for the pandemic-delayed season that begins soon.

The Sun Devils were unrecognizable when they limped out of Husky Stadium that day, demoralized and bruised. They basically threw out their offensive game plan.

"I want to say, as I look back at that, Arizona State played us a little like that," Tormey said of turning bland and unimaginative. "They'd be in two backs the whole game, mass protect on passing downs, try to run the ball on first down. The whole thing was trying not to lose the game on offense."

While everyone shared in the defensive demolition each Saturday, again it was Emtman who swallowed offenses whole and let out a loud burp.

"Steve Emtman, in the middle, was the whole key to that," Tormey said. "Because if you didn't double-team Steve Emtman, no matter who was blocking him, he was making the play in the backfield."

This was how a national championship team was made, with speed, strength and a monster mentality.

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Click the "follow" button in the top right corner to join the conversation on Husky Maven. Access and comment on featured stories and start your own conversations and post external links on our community page.We got so much crap from the guys for the rest of our four years