The hype machine started churning in May or June, and it hasn’t stopped yet. The Washington football team needed to win its final three games last season just to eke out a winning record; now, the Huskies are widely regarded as one of the favorites to win the conference. Sports Illustrated tabbed the UW its preseason No. 7 team in the country, and prognosticating maestro Phil Steele chose the Dawgs as the No. 8 team in the nation in his preseason issue, predicting they’ll play Ohio State in the Rose Bowl. Yes, the Rose Bowl.
It’s all rather heady stuff for anyone who’s watched the Huskies slog through the past fifteen years in metronomic mediocrity. Speckled only with a few of the worst seasons in program history for variety’s sake.
So now, with the opener against Rutgers one day away, the question: Can the UW actually win the Pac-12? I would never call myself an optimist, but in this instance at least, I’m leaning in that direction.
Start with the defense, because that’s what the UW’s opponents will have to do all season. It’s gonna be good. The secondary — led by Budda Baker, Sidney Jones, and Kevin King and featuring perhaps four other players with NFL futures — should be the best west of the Mississippi. Azeem Victor is a menace at middle linebacker, more than worthy of his badass name. Keishawn Bierria doesn’t seem to be getting much love in the offseason celebration of this group’s talent, but he was every bit the player Victor was for large stretches of last season. If Joe Mathis or Psalm Wooching can take a Cory Littleton-level leap as a senior, the linebacking corps might be unmatched in the Pac-12, too.
The defense’s nominal weakness is up front. If you wanna be the one to tell Elijah Qualls he’s a weakness, go right ahead. The Huskies might not generate a ton of pass rush with the line, but the front three of Qualls, Vita Vea and Greg Gaines provides some serious girth, with all three players listed above 315 pounds. When you’re playing a three-man front, as the UW seems likely to do for large stretches, that kind of size can be the perfect recipe to free up ball-hawking linebackers like Victor and Bierria.
All three levels of the D are sound, all three mesh together, and all three are consistent with Chris Petersen and Pete Kwiatkowski’s theory of defense. This, surely, is a unit worthy of conference championship contention.
The other side of the ball is where the questions lie. Some of the big ones: Will Jake Browning have anyone to throw the ball to? When he does, can he be more accurate, particularly down the field? Can John Ross return to his pre-injury form? Can the offensive line stay healthy? Is Myles Gaskin really the second coming?
If the answers to at least three of those questions are yes, then a double-digit win total is realistically in play.
It’s all well and good to examine the Huskies in a vacuum, but football has context. So let’s go through the schedule.
Rutgers, Idaho, and Portland State should all be easy home wins in the first three weeks of the season. Road trips to Arizona are a notorious UW bugaboo, which makes Week 4 the first spot of worry on the slate; but this year’s Wildcats are a weaker vintage, and the Huskies should be at least a touchdown favorite. If they lose to Zona, it’s safe to say the season’s expectations need a readjustment.
Beat the ‘Cats, though, and the Huskies will be 4-0 and likely ranked in the AP top ten for a Friday night tilt against Stanford on Sept. 30 in Husky Stadium. The following Saturday, they’ll visit Oregon and try to break the streak. That eight-day span, more than any other stretch, will determine the UW’s fate. They could win both and emerge as a legitimate national title contender, which is still a highly bizarre phrase to type in relation to the Husky football team. They could also lose both and, for the umpteenth year in a row, recede to the middle of the Pac-12 North.
Of the two games, I actually like their chances better against Stanford, even though the Cardinal are a more highly regarded team. Between the Friday night Husky Stadium atmosphere and the depth of talent the UW defense can throw at Christian McCaffrey, the Huskies could very well start the year 5-0.
After the Ducks, a bye week, and then the second half of the schedule, a typical Pac-12 milieu of talented-but-flawed opponents: home against Oregon State, then road trips to Utah and Cal, then two home games against USC and Arizona State, then a visit to Washington State. Those final five games feature no pushovers. It’s tough to imagine the Huskies winning them all. Utah and USC strike me as particular problem points.
However, in this hypothetical dream world where the Huskies are a top-ten team, they could probably afford one loss in the back half of the schedule and still remain in playoff contention. I think if any of the UW, Stanford, UCLA, USC or Oregon manages to go 12-1 and win the Pac-12 title, that team will make the playoff.
It’s stupid to pick specific football games that are three months out, but I’ll do it anyway. Here’s my prediction: The Huskies finish the regular season 10-2 with losses to Oregon and Utah. I think Oregon will play UCLA for the conference title, which I guess leaves the Huskies going to…the Holiday Bowl? Ranked around No. 10 in the country? Not the promised land, but certainly a clear step forward for a program that needs it.
To explicitly answer the question in the headline: Yes, the Huskies can actually win the Pac-12, but it won’t be easy. They have the talent to win the league, but so do four or five other teams. The breaks will have to go their way. After the past fifteen years on Montlake, though, it’s hard to ask for anything more than that.