seattle – The Washington defense is a flexible bunch, capable of bending and bending and bending to the point of critical mass, and sometimes beyond. But on Saturday, the maligned and much-criticized group didn’t break when it mattered most in a thrilling 31-23 win over California.
After being marched on for 85 yards in the game’s waning minutes, the Huskies somehow managed to pull off a desperation goal-line stand, stopping Cal four consecutive times to improve to 3-1 on the season and 1-0 in Pacific-12 Conference play, much to the delight of 60,437 fans at Husky Stadium.
How did they do it?
“You gotta rise up,” said senior linebacker Cort Dennison. “There is no secret. You have to put your big-boy pads on and bring it. When you’re backed against a wall like that, you have to start swinging. You need to throw the punches first and hit them. We played on their side of the line of scrimmage.”
Clinging to an eight-point lead, the Washington defense found itself pushed back almost as far as it could go, trying to defend a first-and-goal situation from the 2 with 42 seconds remaining.
And after being gashed early in the first half and then late on the final drive, it seemed as though the defense and defensive coordinator Nick Holt would once again spend the week defending themselves.
On first down, Cal quarterback Zach Maynard tried to hit tight end Antohony Miller in the end zone, but redshirt freshman linebacker Jamaal Kearse, who was playing his first significant snaps of the season after John Timu was injured in the third quarter, read the play and was in perfect coverage to force an incompletion.
“He made a fantastic play,” Holt said of the former Lakes High School standout.
On second down, diminutive but powerful Bears tailback Isi Sofele, who rushed for 98 yards in the game, tried to run up the middle. But he was stopped a yard short as Kearse and another youngster, Andrew Hudson, met him at the 1.
On third down, Sofele again tried to run up the middle. Alameda Ta’amu, who was blocked down to the ground by two linemen, stuck his hand out and tripped up Sofele just enough for safety Justin Glenn to come in and drive him back for a 1-yard loss as Dennison piled on to make sure there was no second effort.
“Whatever it takes, to stand them up, you do,” Glenn said.
On fourth down with 25 seconds to play, Maynard dropped back and threw a fade route to his half-brother Keenan Allen. The duo had carved up the UW secondary all game, with Maynard throwing for 349 yards and a touchdown and Allen hauling in 10 catches for 197 yards. But Maynard’s pass was way too deep and went out of bounds.
“It just aired on me all the way to the sideline,” Maynard said. “I tried to give him a chance. It’s on me.”
While it seemed to be a low-percentage play, Bears coach Jeff Tedford defended the call.
“We scored on that against Colorado, and it was open again,” he said. “We have just got to give Keenan a chance to catch that ball. You give your best player a chance to go out and make a play.”
Instead, it was the Washington defense that made the key plays, despite giving up 457 total yards of offense to California.
It’s something coach Steve Sarkisian knew his team was capable of, but he still found himself marveling at after the game.
“I continue to be thoroughly impressed with our football team’s resiliency,” he said. “This group of guys, they have huge hearts, are tough minded, their ability to deal with adversity and focus with the task at hand is pretty amazing to me.”
Perhaps no player has been more consistent or amazing for the Huskies four games into the season than Keith Price. The sophomore quarterback continued to come into his own. Price, who came into the game battling a sprained left knee and a moderately healthy right knee, looked as good as he has all season, completing 19 of 25 passes for 292 yards and three touchdowns. Price has now thrown 14 touchdown passes and gained 983 yards passing this season.
“I thought he was a frickin’ stud again tonight,” Sarkisian said. “Early on, things weren’t clean and he had to buy time and that’s his game. He’s amazingly accurate.”
After the Huskies gave up a 90-yard touchdown pass from Maynard to Allen on third-and-20 on Cal’s first possession of the game, Price made sure UW answered. He hit Devin Aguilar for a 44-yard gain. On the next play, Price avoided two pass rushers and calmly hit a wide open Austin Seferian-Jenkins, who rumbled in from 10 yards out for the first of two 20-yard touchdown passes to the freshman tight end from Gig Harbor in the first half.
“That’s an innate skill, your ability to keep your vision when things are going on all around you and keep your eyes down the field and make plays,” Sarkisian said of Price.
But the biggest play Price made came early in the fourth quarter with Washington up by just one, 24-23. Facing a third-and-12, running back Chris Polk, who had been stymied most of the day as a runner, slipped through the line of scrimmage past the Cal linebackers and into the secondary. Price delivered a perfect throw to a wide-open Polk, who raced 70 yards for a touchdown.
“After I caught it, I had to slow down because I almost cramped,” Polk said. “My hamstrings were tight.”
It was a play that UW worked on all week.
“The first time I tried to hit Chris, it him in the ankles,” Price said with a laugh. “This one, he was wide open and I got it there.”
Washington executed the play to perfection.
“I don’t know if we ran it from our own 30 all week,” Sarkisian said. “We had some pretty good looks throughout the week to get Keith confident with the play and Chris confident with the play and we got what we were hoping to get and they executed it really well.”
Up by eight points, Washington missed two opportunities to put the game away earlier in the fourth quarter, once fumbling and the other time failing to convert on a third-and-7.
But the defense, which held Cal to just three points after halttime, was able to able to keep the Bears out of the end zone.
Ryan Divish: 253-597-8483 ryan.divish@thenewstribune.com blog.thenewstribune.com/uwsports
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