Sad ending to a great season.

[AROS]

Hang your heads high kids.

A terrific season that unfortunately ended not the way we wanted. Frankly they didn’t look ready for the bright lights of the championship game.

Penix was off, defense was atrocious. Meh. I don’t have the emotional attachment with the Huskies I do with the Hawks but I always root for them and I feel bad for them.

Love the coach. Penix might still be a first round pick.

Hell of a season. Chins up!

 

[fenderbender123]

I hate to reach into the bag of excuses, but I have to wonder if UW starting classes January 3, whereas many other schools start on January 10 (including Michigan), makes a difference? If not in class, players can practice and train more and focus on the game.

 

[pmedic920]

Hang your heads high kids.

A terrific season that unfortunately ended not the way we wanted. Frankly they didn’t look ready for the bright lights of the championship game.

Penix was off, defense was atrocious. Meh. I don’t have the emotional attachment with the Huskies I do with the Hawks but I always root for them and I feel bad for them.

Love the coach. Penix might still be a first round pick.

Hell of a season. Chins up!

I think you meant “HOLD” your heads high?

Otherwise I agree

 

[TheLegendOfBoom]

Hang your heads high kids.

A terrific season that unfortunately ended not the way we wanted. Frankly they didn’t look ready for the bright lights of the championship game.

Penix was off, defense was atrocious. Meh. I don’t have the emotional attachment with the Huskies I do with the Hawks but I always root for them and I feel bad for them.

Love the coach. Penix might still be a first round pick.

Hell of a season. Chins up!

I thought the defense “held up” enough so UW can get the ball on offense and score on their drives but Penix couldn’t get anything going and UW missed out on opportunities for TDs.

That was the biggest difference to me.

Michigan ran well but UW also failed to capitalize on offense when it mattered.

That miss throw to Odunze cost Washington badly. The dropped pass to Nixon ended that drive.

Washington’s defense held up on a several key Michigan drives but Penix couldn’t score TDs on the drives when UWs defense gave them a chance.

The defense did all they could but the offense didn’t make enough plays to keep the game in reach.

I’m very disappointed cause it took over 30 years to get back to this point and I wanted this Championship bad but Michigan did what they needed to do to win and it’s a tough loss cause it felt this Husky had their best chance this year and I don’t know if that will happen anytime soon again. It’s very hard to win in college football. Almost harder to win in college football than it is in the NFL.

I don’t know, the day after, just totally sucks right now.

 

[Sgt. Largent]

Give Michigan credit, they were the more physical team, on both lines....and affected Penix most of the time with only four rushers.

That's not something that the best O-line in college football could let happen if UW was going to win that game last night. But it did, and IMO that was the difference. Cause once they started hitting Penix, he was WAY off his game, and it showed.

In the end a frustrating way to lose a national championship game, not playing your best.

 

[NoGain]

The thing is that UW's defense WAS atrocious in the first quarter. From then on (until the end when it no longer mattered) the defense performed admirably, good enough to win, only giving up one FG after an INT deep in Husky territory to start the second half, and handing the Husky offense the ball seven times to tie and or take the lead in the game. It was the offense that failed to respond to the opportunities that the defense gave them that hurt the most.

 

[AROS]

Yeah, atrocious in the first quarter for sure. They did improve but Penix picked the worst game of his career to look average. Hat's off to Michigan, as Sgt said, they won in the trenches, were more physical, and looked like they wanted it more.

 

[Sgt. Largent]

The thing is that UW's defense WAS atrocious in the first quarter. From then on (until the end when it no longer mattered) the defense performed admirably, good enough to win, only giving up one FG after an INT deep in Husky territory to start the second half, and handing the Husky offense the ball seven times to tie and or take the lead in the game. It was the offense that failed to respond to the opportunities that the defense gave them that hurt the most.

The defense gave Penix plenty of opportunities to get back in that game, and even win. I think at one time Michigan had 6 or 7 straight 3rd down failures in the 2nd to 3rd quarters?

But I don't absolve the D playing as undisciplined as they did in the 1st quarter giving up a 17-3 lead forcing the offense to be one dimensional, which played right into the hands of Michigan's D's gameplan.

 

[NoGain]

The defense gave Penix plenty of opportunities to get back in that game, and even win. I think at one time Michigan had 6 or 7 straight 3rd down failures in the 2nd to 3rd quarters?

But I don't absolve the D playing as undisciplined as they did in the 1st quarter giving up a 17-3 lead forcing the offense to be one dimensional, which played right into the hands of Michigan's D's gameplan.

I wasn't at all absolving the defense. To the contrary, I said in the game thread that the Husky defense had a habit of starting slow, especially against the run, all year long, but, generally speaking, tended to improve as the game wore on.

My personal disappointment and feelings of disheartenment came from the offense not being able to deliver on the opportunities the defense gave them from the second quarter on. True, Michigan's defense was quite solid, but if you told any college football expert that the Husky's offense would be given the ball seven times by the Husky defense to tie or go ahead in the game, I think most would have said, without knowing the future result, ADVANTAGE HUSKIES. I think the majority would have thought the Huskies would have scored at least 13-17 points with those opportunities no matter how good the Michigan D was.

But nobody knows this more than the Husky players themselves. The guys on offense know they didn't play near their best game.

 

[GeekHawk]

The result, while disappointing, didn't surprise me too much. That matchup reminded *a lot* of SB 48, except we were the Broncos...

 

[SoulfishHawk]

Amazing Season. Just wasn't our night. Between ridiculous one sided officiating, Penix and Johnson both playing thru injury, damn.
They had 4 straight drives, down 7 and couldn't score. They went 8 drives and scored 3 points.
Had a LOT of chances. The score doesn't show how close that game was in the 4th quarter.


In the last 2 seasons: 25-3 record, 21 straight wins before last night, back to back bowl wins, 3-0 vs. Whoregon and a trip to the National Championship games. I couldn't be any prouder of a team. What a run it's been these last couple years.

Michigan is damn good, but they got a LOT of help. And no, I'm not saying that's why UW lost. They just had a bad night. It happens.

Sad thing is that a LOT of people are judging that team on ONE game. And esp. judging Penix on last night. He had a bad game. Period.
NO QB in the history of college or NFL football has went their entire career w/out a bad game. Timing sucked, but if people actually think last night is any indication on how good he is, they just are not paying attention.

 

[SoulfishHawk]

I doubt I'm the only one who was having XL nightmares. Holy hell that was one sided. SO many ignored holds in that game. Then, when the Dawgs finally make a play........"holding"

F off, Refs. Sincerely.

 

[SoulfishHawk]

Side note, Ja'Lynn Polk is going Pro. Bummer

 

[NoGain]

The saddest most unconsoling thing for me is that at my age I may never again see a Husky team truly in it for the national championship at the end of a season. The last time we won it was over 30 years ago. We were in the CFP a few years ago under Chris Petersen, but I thought it would have been a minor miracle if we had beat Alabama, so dominant that team was that year.

The truth is a LOT has to go right for the Huskies to even be in the discussion for such things. Look at the ranking of the Husky's last fifteen recruiting classes:

--36th
--26th
--95th
--30th
--16th
--15th
--16th
--22nd
--29th
--26th
--38th
--18th
--24th
--24th
--19th

The Huskies high water mark were those three years under Chris Petersen and the cache he brought to the program as one of the winningest coaches of all time. But even then, the Huskies topped out as the 15th ranked recruiting class. There's a reason why Ohio State, Alabama, Georgia, LSU, and a few other teams are always in the discussion now. They consistently recruit top 5 or so classes chock full of 5 and 4 star recruits.

What Kalen DeBoer and his staff did with this group was nothing short of awe inspiring. I'm sure he'll always field a quality competitive team as long as he remains at UW. But getting back to a national championship game? The odds are stacked heavily against it.

 

[SoulfishHawk]

Meh, this team is going to stay relevant.

 

[NoGain]

Meh, this team is going to stay relevant.

There's a difference between staying relevant and truly being a national title contender.

 

[SoulfishHawk]

I'm gonna' go ahead and enjoy the ride. I'm bummed and pissed today, but I'm not going to assume they won't be back in again at some point.

 

[cymatica]

Hang your heads high kids.

A terrific season that unfortunately ended not the way we wanted. Frankly they didn’t look ready for the bright lights of the championship game.

Penix was off, defense was atrocious. Meh. I don’t have the emotional attachment with the Huskies I do with the Hawks but I always root for them and I feel bad for them.

Love the coach. Penix might still be a first round pick.

Hell of a season. Chins up!

Helps when Michigan gets away with huge obvious holds on big plays while as soon as an iffy hold is committed by Washington the flags come out. Pics in the link.

https://www.the-sun.com/sport/10049...ational-championship-rigged-michael-penix-jr/

 

[SoulfishHawk]

several