10 more notes from the Huskies’ 26-16 loss to rival Oregon
Washington and No. 4 Oregon added the latest entry to their heated rivalry series on a soggy Saturday night in Seattle.
There is a lot to unpack from the nearly four-hour contest, which resulted in a 26-16 victory for the visiting Ducks.
Here are 10 more notes:
▪ This rivalry game — played for the 113th time Saturday at Husky Stadium — is always intense, but this season’s meeting seemed to be simmering before the two teams even took the field.
After the Huskies finally put a stop to the infamous streak back in 2016, and won again in 2017, the Ducks fired back with consecutive close wins in 2018 and 2019, and then, after the game was canceled last year due to COVID-19 issues in UW’s program, and the Huskies had to withdraw from the Pac-12 Championship Game for the same reason, Oregon took their place and won a second straight conference title.
This season’s rivalry renewal was fueled even further earlier in the week, when UW coach Jimmy Lake’s recruiting comments gained national attention.
When Oregon wrapped up the win Saturday, players from both teams were separated before returning to the locker rooms.
“There was a lot of chipping going back and forth,” Lake said. “Obviously a rival game, and during the game that was happening. All I saw was there were guys chipping. 18-to-22-year-olds and they were talking trash back and forth. I didn’t hear what they were saying. But, our staff and their staff did a good job of separating the guys before anything seriously escalated.”
During the first half, the telecast also showed an exchange between UW linebacker Ruperake Fuavai and an Oregon defender on a special teams play. Lake hurried over on the sideline and appeared to push his right hand forward into the face mask of Fuavai and then shove him.
Here is how Lake addressed the interaction postgame: “I went in to separate them and push him back. And then after that we settled down a little bit, and that was our deal all week long, was we’ve got to have poise. We knew this was going to be a very heated matchup.”
UW athletic director Jen Cohen released this statement after the game: “We are aware of an interaction between Head Coach Jimmy Lake and a student-athlete during the first half of Saturday’s game. We have high expectations of the conduct of our coaches and we are working to gather more information on this matter.”
▪ In the wake of the Huskies’ least productive offensive performance of the season, offensive coordinator John Donovan, in his second season with the program, was fired, per a Sunday afternoon release from the university.
Wide receivers coach Junior Adams will take over play calling, while offensive quality control analyst Payton McCollum will be the quarterbacks coach, per the release. The Huskies have three regular season games remaining against Arizona State, Colorado and Washington State, and likely need to win two to advance to a bowl game.
▪ The offense stumbled to a season-low 166 yards. This is only the sixth instance since the winless 2008 season — when it happened three times against Notre Dame, USC and UCLA — the Huskies have finished a game with less than 200 yards.
They managed only 194 in their Peach Bowl loss to Alabama in 2016, 179 in their season-opening loss at Boise State in 2015, 179 in their conference-opening loss to Stanford in 2014, 183 when they were stomped by LSU in 2012 in Baton Rouge, and 107 in an embarrassing defeat against Stanford at home in 2010.
Saturday’s offensive totals were the worst since that last shutout loss to the Cardinal more than a decade ago.
▪ Both the rushing (65 yards) and passing (111) totals were also season lows for UW. While we’re looking back, the rushing total was the lowest since the 2019 road loss to Colorado, and the passing total the lowest since the 2017 Apple Cup, when UW didn’t exactly need to throw.
The Huskies also picked up only seven first downs — again their worst showing since that 2010 loss to Stanford. They had only three through the first three quarters, and apart from their immediate scoring opportunity created by Carson Bruener’s interception return, they only drove into the red zone once.
UW now ranks a troubling 10th in the conference in scoring (22 points per game), first downs (18.7 per game), total offense (332.1 yards per game) and rushing offense (115.3).
“Execution starts with me,” Lake said. “It’s all on the coaches. You can put 100 percent on the coaches. So you can write that. That’s all on us. That’s all on us first. We’ve got to put our guys in position to go out there and execute and make plays.”
▪ McGrew provided the Huskies’ only two touchdowns, rushing for a 1-yard score two plays after Bruener’s interception to give UW a 7-0 lead, then a 2-yard score in the fourth quarter that cut Oregon’s lead to 24-16.
He has scored two touchdowns in each game he has scored in, finding the end zone twice against Arkansas, California and Oregon State in consecutive games before adding two more against Oregon.
McGrew led UW with 48 yards on 15 carries, and has team highs in attempts (107), yards (431) and touchdowns (eight) through his seven games played.
▪ Entering the game, only four Huskies players — McGrew, center Luke Wattenberg, injured outside linebacker Ryan Bowman and punter Race Porter, all sixth-year seniors — had played in a win against the Ducks. That remains true after Saturday’s loss.
▪ UW’s defense did enough to keep the score within reach, but once the Ducks rallied from a slow start, they stacked up a season-high 329 yards on the ground.
Oregon is the fifth team to rush for 200-plus yards against the Huskies, joining Michigan, Oregon State, UCLA and Arizona. UW now ranks 11th in the Pac-12 in rushing defense.
Travis Dye — who finished with 28 carries for a career-high 211 yards and a touchdown — led the way. He is the fifth opposing running back to collect 100-plus rushing yards against the Huskies in a game this season, joining UCLA’s Zach Charbonnet (131 yards), Oregon State’s B.J. Baylor (112) and Michigan’s Blake Corum (172) and Hassan Haskins (155).
▪ A week after his first career interception against Stanford, inside linebacker Jackson Sirmon added his first career safety midway through the first quarter against Oregon.
The Ducks were backed up inside their own 1, and on the first play of the drive, Sirmon pulled Dye to the ground behind the goal line, giving the Huskies a 9-3 lead.
Sirmon added a team-leading 10 tackles to bring his team-leading total through nine games to 69.
▪ Bruener, after earning Pac-12 Defensive Player of the week and Freshman of the Week honors for his performance against Stanford, made more plays against the Ducks.
He started again opposite Sirmon, and energized the Huskies early, intercepting a pass from Anthony Brown on the sixth play of the Ducks’ opening drive and returning it 50 yards to the Oregon 6. Bruener also finished with seven tackles.
▪ Porter continued his impressive season by pinning the Ducks near the goal line twice.
On his first attempt midway through the first quarter, he booted a 65-yard punt that the Huskies downed inside Oregon’s 1, which led to Sirmon’s safety. On his second attempt later in the quarter, he sailed a 44-yarder deep into Oregon territory which cornerback Kyler Gordon caught and downed at the 2.
Porter averaged 45.1 yards per attempt on his seven punts Saturday. His punting average through nine games (47.2 yards per attempt) ranks second in the Pac-12 and seventh in the FBS.
This story was originally published November 7, 2021 at 2:51 PM with the headline "10 more notes from the Huskies’ 26-16 loss to rival Oregon."
