Washington Huskies Barely Hang On In Chris Petersen's Coaching Debut

It was a struggle but the Washington Huskies prevailed barely over Hawaii 17-16 in Chris Petersen's head coaching debut at U-Dub.


Hawaii News Now - KGMB and KHNL
“Our guys played hard." Petersen said. "I think there were some good individual plays. Certainly as a team we didn’t play nearly like I think we can play. I think it’s going to be a big wake up call. It’s just hard to win games against anybody.”

The Rainbow Warriors jumped on the Dawgs for 10 unanswered points before Washington's offense began to wake up when John Ross scored on the ground for 20 yards in the first quarter and catching a pass from quarterback Jeff Lindquist for 91 yards.

Washington took a 17-10 lead at halftime and then didn't score again.

Hawaii added a pair of field goals but the rally feel short.

“I just feel like our whole team played too tight." Petersen said.  "We got off to a bad start and we were playing not to lose. At times, our defense would get into a rhythm, do some good things and our offense wouldn’t do anything. It started to snowball a little bit.”

“We had our chances, both offensively and defensively."  Hawaii head coach Norm Chow said.  "We need to get better, and we need to be a better football club.”

"Hungry" Huskies Down The Cougars In Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl

It's been a wild mouth at U-Dub.

Head coach Steve Sarkisian leaves abruptly to take the Southern California job, Chris Petersen is hired to take over from Boise State and former Washington quarterback Marcus  Tuiasosopo is name interim head coach and has no idea where he will work next year.

Not the ideal situation but Washington overcame all the chaos to defeat BYU Friday night 31-16 in the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl.

"We wanted it." Tuiasosopo said after the game.

New Washington head coach Chris Petersen did not attend the bowl game and let Tuiasosopo run the show.

I'm sure the new coach liked the results.

"How about our guys here, and this coaching staff." Tuiasosopo said. “Nine wins! ... I’m fired up for them. When all that went down, they regrouped. They wanted to finish as winners. They wanted to finish with nine wins. And they did.”

It was a painful final game as a Husky for quarterback Keith Price.  Playing through what he thought was a broken rib and receiving an injection at halftime, Price was damn near perfect.  

Price's final numbers for the game were 17-22 passing for 123 yards, one interception and one touchdown.

Bishop Sankey ran for 95 yards and two touchdowns to earn bowl offensive MVP honors.

Here are the highlights

Thanks PAC 12 Network

So, Sark Goes Back To USC...Perhaps...Now With Updates

And it looks like he did interview after all...

From Joe Schad and his Twitter, looks like he took the job...

But, there are others who are saying that a contract has been delivered, but not signed and sealed... (@InsideUSC gets the tip for that one...)

Sarkisian was the USC QB coach in two stints- 2001-03 and 2005-06- and was Assistant Head Coach and OC from 2007-08.

He does get the culture...

Now, the Silly Season leads itself to U-Dub...and poo-poo's the story earlier this morning on ESPN.com speculating that Vandy's James Franklin and Boise State's Chris Peterson were the USC leaders in the clubhouse.

Anyone calling Chris Petersen...??? Paging Chris Peterson. A call from Seattle on Line 2.

RealDawg247 is reporting that there is a 2PM meeting on the U-Dub campus to tell the team "something..."

Perhaps, that they can get a better head coach than the one that they're letting go...

More when we know more...

Sarkisian's not stopping presses, but USC obviously couldn't do any better. They tried. They got stoned. This is who they are now.
— Jim Rome (@jimrome) December 2, 2013

It's not apples-to-apples, but should USC fans be concerned that Lane Kiffin had a better Pac-12 winning pct than his replacement?
— Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) December 2, 2013

Note--Reports say interim USC coach Ed Orgeron has turned down an offer to become Associate Head Coach and Defensive Coordinator.

Confirmed: Despite being offered more money and an Assistant HC position, Coach Ed Orgeron has sent in his resignation to #USC.
— Heather Brittany (@HeatherBrit) December 2, 2013

here's how the news is being viewed in Seattle...
((HT: KING5))

ICYMI: 4TD's for UCLA LB Myles Jack as Bruins Beat Washington

So, how many times can you actually use a headline that includes a football Linebacker scoring 4 touchdown's?

We get to use one here, because late Friday night, it actually happened.

UCLA Linebacker/Running back Myles Jack ran for 4 touchdown's to lead the Bruins to a 41-31 win over Washington.

The 225 lb Freshman only ran for 60 yards and didn't lead the team in rushing. But he's changed the entire dynamic for the Pac-12 contending Bruins.

Yes, Jack started the season as a linebacker and is still getting some work there, he had 5 tackles Friday night. But in just two weeks, he's run for 179 yards and 5 TD's in just two games.

UCLA moves to 8-2, 5-2 in the Pac 12 on the season. Washington dropped to 6-4, 3-4 in the Pac 12.

Your highlights from ESPN:

Former U of Washington Coaching Legend Don James Passes Away

((ht: seattletimes.com))

He was arguably the guy that made University of Washington football great back in the 70's, 80's and early 90's. And he won at least a share of a national title in 1991.

He is Don James and he passed away Sunday at the age of 80 after a long battle with Pancreatic Cancer.

James coached the Huskies from 1978 until he retired in 1992. In that stretch of time, he won 157 games losing only 53.

He was inducted to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1997. No word yet on Washington's plans to honor James next week.

Here's the early reports form KOMO News...