Road to 1991 Perfection: Dave Hoffmann Enjoyed Drawing the Line

Victory came on Saturday.

Nearly as satisfying was Sunday.

For on the day following each conquest, members of the 1991 University of Washington football team met to finish and begin each week. A brief ritual tied everything together.

On a posted schedule, players drew a black line through each opponent.

First they beat them, then they erased them.

Dave Hoffmann, a starting inside linebacker and one of the Huskies' most emotional players, was right in the middle of this football calligraphy.

"Every game that year was a championship game," Hoffmann said. "We had it on the locker room wall. It was a ladder. Every week, that was all we had was the name of that opponent. And on Sunday, there was a black line through it — because we had done away with them and it was on to the next one."

This is another in series of vignettes about the UW 1991 national championship football team, filling in the conversation before the pandemic-delayed season begins next month. This is week 8 of the perfect 12-0 run, with the Huskies preparing to battle Arizona State.

"After losing to UCLA the year before, we were so close to a national championship and we gave it away," Hoffmann reminded, crediting the early victory over Nebraska with really getting things started. "We knew what it would take to win the whole thing. We had the players and we had the coaches, we just had to do it right and we did it."

A second-team Associated Press All-American selection for consecutive seasons, Hoffmann has been a Secret Service agent for decades. Yet the discipline, teamwork and loyalty that guides him now first came as a Husky football player, one who appeared in three consecutive Rose Bowls, two of them victories, plus won that national championship.

"I'll always remember looking at the eyes of my brothers when I stand there in the huddle," Hoffmann said. "Man I love those guys. I'd go to war with them any day, any place. Thanks fellas."

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