Sunday, Sep. 20, 2009

Huskies revive the roar for a day

By Bob Condotta, The Seattle Times

SEATTLE -- The easy storyline is that the student beat the teacher.

What Washington Huskies fans care about more is that their team is unmistakably back after a shocking 16-13 win over the third-ranked USC Trojans on Saturday in front of 61,889 at Husky Stadium.

In the sea of humanity that swarmed onto the field after the biggest moment in years, there were a few who had been there before -- former players who had once enjoyed similar glory and then watched helplessly as the program sunk to depths they could never have imagined.

"I had a multitude of (former players) come up to me and say just 'thank you,' " said middle linebacker Donald Butler, who made a game-high 12 tackles (two for loss), forced a fumble and had an interception. " 'Thank you for finally showing everybody else that UW is serious and not just some cake team you can run all over.' "

Washington got the winning points with four seconds left on a 23-yard field goal by Erik Folk, sending the crowd into delirium.

Washington had gone 0-12 last season, hadn't beaten a ranked team since the 2003 Apple Cup, had lost 10 straight Pac-10 games and had lost 15 in a row before beating Idaho last week.

For a few scary moments Saturday, however, it looked like nothing had changed as the Trojans moved easily down the field the first two times they had the ball, rushing for 111 yards in the process, to take a 10-0 lead.

"Early on in that game you would have thought we would have gotten beat

50-0," said UW coach Steve Sarkisian.

But then the Huskies dipped back into a past that those former players surely happily recognized, playing the kind of grind-it-out game the program was once noted for and holding the Trojans to just three points in the final 49:24, a shocking turnaround for a defense that last year ranked as the worst in school history.

"They could have cashed it in and said, 'We can't stop them, we can't stop their run,' " Sarkisian said. "But we kept battling, we kept competing."

The Huskies showed just how much progress they have made under Sarkisian, a former USC assistant who can now claim what few other coaches can -- a winning record against Pete Carroll, the man Sarkisian has consistently called "my mentor."

USC had won the past seven meetings against the Huskies by an average score of 40-16, including a 56-0 victory in Los Angeles last year five days after it was announced that Tyrone Willingham had been fired.

The USC offense went stagnant after scoring on its first two drives with redshirt sophomore quarterback Aaron Corp unable to mount much of a passing attack.

The Huskies took a 13-10 lead with 9:53 to play on a 46-yard field goal by Folk, the longest of his career. It came after a drive typical of UW on this day -- 33 yards on 11 plays chewing up 4:28 -- as UW wasn't flashy but managed the game well, keeping the USC offense off the field and not making mistakes.

The lead held until the 4:07 mark when USC's Jordan Congdon kicked a 25-yard field goal to tie it at 13-13.

The Huskies kept the Trojans out of the end zone after USC had moved quickly to the 11. That, too, was typical of UW's play on this day as its bend-but-don't-break defense worked perfectly.