UW Football Was Never More Fun Than With Sonny Sixkiller in '71

The exhaustive second season of Sonny Sixkiller came to an end in 1971 and University of Washington football fans walked away feeling like they'd got their money's worth.

People weren't totally satisfied with an 8-3 season, but they were riveted at all times by the antics of the quarterback with the cool name and his swashbuckling team.

Good or bad, those in the stands or sitting in front of TV sets or radios never knew what was coming next. For sure, these Huskies flirted with having one of the most successful seasons in UW football annals.

"Outside of one botched pass and a missed field, with that one legitimate loss to Stanford, we could have been 10-1," Sixkiller said. "That would have been unbelievable."

The Huskies entered the season with realistic Rose Bowl hopes that disappeared once Steve Wiezbowski's 22-yard field goal with 24 seconds left to play sailed wide right at Oregon. His inexplicable miss enabled the Ducks to hold onto a 25-23 victory.

A month later, the UW had a 12-10 lead over USC and possession of the football at home with 3:45 remaining. Sixkiller wanted a safe running play, but the coaching staff called for a pass. Sonny hit teammate Jim Krieg in the shoulder pads and opposing cornerback Alonzo Thomas intercepted the carom, leading to a late field goal and a 13-12 defeat.

"They obviously had great players, but we didn't think they were any better than we were," Sixkiller said of the mighty Trojans. "We thought we could go out there and kick their butt."

These outcomes relegated the UW to second place in the Pac-8 Conference behind Stanford, which had used its superior defense to craft a 17-6 victory over the Huskies in Seattle, leaving no doubt to who had the better team.

The then-Indians finished the regular season 8-3, but they lost just once in Pac-8 play and returned to Pasadena where they upset the unbeaten and fourth-ranked Michigan Wolverines 13-12.

The fanciful dream all along was to have Sixkiller and his UW teammates put their magic on display in the Rose Bowl. Sonny vs. Bo Schembechler on New Year's Day? With the nation tuning in to see the storybook quarterback, the TV ratings would have gone through the roof.

The game of the '71 season, for the Huskies and maybe anywhere, turned out to be another Pac-8-Big Ten pairing.

With ABC cameras recording his every throw and fans in different regions seeing him in action for the first time, Sixkiller passed for three touchdowns and 387 yards against Purdue and his team pulled out a tantalizing 38-35 victory.

Something was always happening with these high-octane Huskies. They rang up huge point totals in each of their non-conference games -- 65, 38, 44 and 52. They wore white shoes covered by tape. Sixkiller's face was on the cover of SI. His Volkswagen ended up in a front yard.

A bowl game for the Huskies would have been just reward, but the stodgy Pac-8 wouldn't let its teams consider postseason options outside of Pasadena for another four years.

After watching Mississippi manhandle Georgia Tech 41-18 in a notably unappealing '71 Peach Bowl, Seattle Times columnist Georg N. Meyers suggested in print that Sixkiller and Co., if invited, would have made that showcase game far more suitable for its national audience.

"We had the potential to be very, very special that year," Sonny said. "We had a really good team."