The reoccurring theme to the 2008 Washington football season seems to be that just when it seems things can't get any worse, they do.
Take, for example, the pregame warmups, when an already thin defensive line lost starting tackle Senio Kelemete to a knee injury half an hour before kickoff.
Want another example? How about in the second quarter when the Husky defense managed to turn a rare turnover into a negative (more on that later).
It's been that kind of season for the Huskies, and it was that kind of night again Saturday as the Huskies were dominated by Notre Dame in a 33-7 Irish victory that felt even more lopsided than the score.
By the end of the game, only a fraction of the 70,437 fans were still in their seats, and many of those who stuck around were either jubilant Irish fans or angry Husky fans wanting to voice their displeasure towards Husky coach Tyrone Willingham, who seems certain to be fired sometime between now and early December.
There was one fan with sign that read "re-Ty-re."
Another held up a sign with a picture of Willingham that read "You can have him back!"
Notre Dame, of course, fired Willingham four years ago after his third season in South Bend. Yet another fan wore a paper bag over his head that said "Fire Ty."
"There was nothing that we really did well tonight,"
said Willingham in reference to his team's offensive struggles.
He may as well have been talking about every facet of the game.
The 0-7 Huskies, who have now lost nine in a row going back to last season, were completely dominated on both sides of the ball. The Irish, who came into the game ranked 108th in the nation in rushing offense, piled up 252 yards on the ground, or 151 yards more than their per-game average through six games.
Defensively, the Irish shut the Huskies down the entire game until a drive late in the fourth quarter against Notre Dame's backups saved the Huskies from a historically bad night. Heading into that drive, which started at the 6:13 mark of the fourth quarter, Washington had just 55 yards of total offense, four first downs, and had not moved the ball past midfield. The school's all-time low for offensive output was a 61-yard effort in 1948, and the Huskies hadn't been shut out at home since 1976.
"I looked up in the fourth quarter and saw 55 total yards and I was just sick to my stomach,"
said sophomore receiver D'Andre Goodwin.
That final drive, which ended with a six-yard touchdown pass from Ronnie Fouch to Goodwin, spared the Huskies a bit of embarrassment, but didn't change the fact that the Huskies took a step back on offense.
"I think the numbers say that,"
Willingham said. "Gosh, up until the last five minutes we had four first downs and were not very effective throwing and not very effective running."
Even with that final drive, the Huskies managed just nine first downs, 124 yards of total offense and 26 rushing yards.
Washington's seventh loss makes official what most people have assumed for a while now: the Huskies won't be eligible for a bowl game this season.
"Right now the thing we've got to draw on is just basic pride,"
Willingham said. "We've got to step up -- coaches and players and all of us have to step up and do better than what we did tonight, because this was not a good performance."
The bad performance started early and never really relented. The Huskies went three-and-out on their first possession, while Notre Dame needed just three plays -- the last of which was a 51-yard pass from Jimmy Clausen to Michael Floyd -- to score a touchdown.
After another three-and-out for Washington, the Husky defense appeared to make what could have been a momentum changing play when Nate Williams intercepted a Clausen pass, but pass interference was called on Vonzell McDowell, Jr., negating the interception and return to midfield. Three plays later, Irish receiver Golden Tate scored on a 23-yard reverse run and the rout was on.
On Notre Dame's next possession, which of course came following a Washington punt -- the Huskies had nine to Notre Dame's zero -- the Huskies managed to hurt themselves despite getting a turnover. Facing fourth-and-19 from the UW 32-yard line, the Irish elected to go for it rather that try a long field goal, and when Clausen threw over the middle, Williams intercepted a tipped pass at the 1-yard line where he was accidentally tripped by teammate Mesphin Forrester. Instead of getting the ball on the 32, the Huskies had the worst possible field possession and again went three-and-out.
Williams made no apologies for the interception, his first as a Husky.
"When you're in the heat of the moment and you see a ball in the air, your natural instinct as a DB is to get the ball no matter what,"
he said. "People might want to criticize me for catching it, but that's just what I'm taught: whenever the ball's in the air, it's ours. That's just what I did."
One of the biggest humiliations of many for Washington on this night came in the third quarter when it looked like the Huskies had finally forced the Irish to punt. On fourth-and-13 in a 24-0 game, Notre Dame got tricky, snapping the ball short to linebacker Harrison Smith, who rumbled 35 yards for a first down that led to an eventual field goal.
Things don't get any easier for the Huskies either, as they travel to L.A. next weekend to face USC.
"We've got to keep going forward,"
said Fouch. "It's tough, it's tough to lose like this in our own house, but we've got to keep moving forward and focus on USC now."
