The State of Washington – Football Update

Fig Jam

If you live in the state of Washington – then you are no doubt aware of the dire football scenario that is playing itself out this season.  At both the College and Professional level, the teams from Washington are miserable.  I have to believe that the level of play coming from the Seahawks, Huskies, and Cougars is absolutely unprecedented. 

Let’s examine the teams of Washington State for a minute, and quietly reflect on WTF is going on. 

DA Hawks 

For whatever reason, the Seahawks ineptitude does not surprise me.  They have been good for a long time, but simply have not been replacing their offensive weapons at all. Thus, at the beginning of this season the marquee WR’s were Nate Burleson and a very old Bobby Engram, and the RB situation was a committee of second tier talent running behind an aging offensive line.  There was no TE to speak of and Matt Hasselback has clearly reached the stage in his career where he is ‘injury prone.’  I argued this before the season to several people, but the pervading notion was that the Defense was good enough to carry the team, and the Mike Holmgren was an offensive genius who would find a way to score points.  Ironically – nobody was really right.  The defense has been terrible.   The offense has shown flashes, but injuries have just decimated that side of the ball.  What has happened now is that the Seahawks are 1-4, facing a road trip to Tampa Bay this week for Sunday Night football, and won’t have Matt Hasselback again.  Watching that game will be tough. 

Looking forward, the Hawks may get Hasselback back in the fold before too long, but the long term issues surrounding the OLine and  the offensive weapons that Matt has aren’t likely to be resolved.  Combine that with the surging Arizona Cardinals, and you have a recipe for a losing season in Mike Holmgren’s final go round. 

The Seahawks are the best football team in the state of Washington  – by a substantial margin.

Hello Dawg Fans (breaks down crying)

The Huskies are the most surprising of the three terrible teams in Washington.  Yes they faced a tough schedule headed into the season, but the infusion of a solid recruiting class combined with a veteran Quarterback and Offensive line led many to believe that the Dawgs may be a team that put up a winning record this season.  Not so.  The freshmen have looked overwhelmed – the offensive line has regressed – the quarterback is hurt – and then there is the defense.  OH MY GOD.  The defense (breaks down crying again) is an abomination.  This really isn’t news at this point, but it is enough to point out that the D is somehow worse than it was last season and is once again rewriting the UW record books in a negative fashion. 

UW is 0-5, faces an Oregon State team at Husky Stadium this weekend that is a 14 point favorite (probably not a big enough line on this one – if I’m to be honest about it),  and apparently will play out the rest of the season with Ty Willingham as head coach, despite the fact that everyone in the world knows that he is as good as fired.  UW’s first year AD Scott Woodward has handled this situation very poorly, giving impromptu press conferences on the sidelines of games (see generally: Arizona) to hold to his belief that Ty shouldn’t be fired midseason.  At this point, firing Ty and appointing a staffer as interim is really the only logical move, but Woodward remains undeterred. 

So UW will get 0 recruits, will get lambasted by their fanbase who are really booing a lamb duck coach, will continue to play for a man who has no motivational ability, and likely continue to get smacked in the face on a weekly basis.  Rumors of a player revolt may start circulating soon.  Can’t wait for that.

The University of Washington is the second best team in the State.

Fight Fight Fight for umm… Yikes.  Washington State

There is embarassing, really embarassing, and then there is WSU. Their closest loss has been 28-3  to UCLA.  The other losses have been 39-13 to Oklahoma State,  66-3 to Cal, 45-17  to Baylor,   63-14  to Oregon, and 66-13 to Oregon State.  They are losing to PAC 10 teams by a score of 223 to 33.  Almost a 7 to 1 ratio.  WSU has lost it’s #1 QB, it’s #2 QB, and #3 QB and was forced to hold open tryouts for the quarterback position, just so the scout team will have someone to play the position.  This event was nationally covered. 

This week, against USC, WSU is a 42 point underdog at home.  First year coach Paul Wulff has not handled the pressure of being a BCS coach very well.  No need to re hash all his quotes, but when you say things to the effect of, “my upperclassmen aren’t big or strong,” you probably aren’t winning over the locker room very well.  Sadly, the Cougars may not have hit rock bottom yet.  With the USC game looming, their only hope is that the Trojans totally overlook  them and they somehow keep that game respectable.  If they can’t, they are facing back to back weeks with losses greater than 50 points, with more discussion from the media about how they may be the worst team in PAC 10 history. 

Now, you may think I’m being unfair to WSU because they do have a win, after all (while the Huskies remain winless).  However, that win came against Portland State.  Everytime the Cougs have taken the field against a football championship series opponent, they have gotten killed.  UW at least stuck around with Oregon, lost to Stanford by a touchdown, and lost to BYU (apparently a legit top 10 team) by a point. 

By virtue of those results, I have to conclude that WSU’s season has gone worse than UW’s thus far.  That is subject to change, of course. 

WSU is the worst team in the state of Washington.  

Oh and next year – The Seahawks will have a new coach, the Huskies will have a new coach, and WSU will still be in early rebuild mode.  So we have that going for us, which is nice.