UW found some offensive momentum late, but Oregon State found more, handing the Huskies a 27-24 loss
How quickly this game turned in Washington’s favor in the final quarter Saturday night at Reser Stadium.
And how quickly it turned back.
Here’s how what at one point was trending toward a third consecutive win for the Huskies ended in a fourth-quarter comeback and 27-24 victory for Oregon State:
Searching for a second touchdown, three quarters after they scored their first, the Huskies finally found the end zone on their first drive of the fourth quarter. Sixth-year tailback Sean McGrew took a direct snap, slipped through a pair of oncoming defenders, escaped an attempted ankle tackle steps before reaching the goal line, and tied the game with his 39-yard scamper.
He scored again 17 seconds later. On the first play of Oregon State’s ensuing drive, Faatui Tuitele tracked down quarterback Chance Nolan, sacked him for a 6-yard loss and popped the ball out. Sam Taimani picked it up, and set the Huskies up for McGrew’s 6-yard score on the following play. McGrew took a direct snap again, and was pushed into the end zone by Huskies guard Henry Bainivalu, dragging a defender along behind them.
“It was definitely a huge momentum swing,” said McGrew, who led the Huskies with 104 yards and the two touchdowns on 16 attempts. “But, there’s 10 minutes left in the game and a whole lot of football can happen in 10 minutes.
“They went down and answered and we just didn’t answer back. That’s just how it happens sometimes.”
The momentum suddenly belonged to the Huskies. Until, well, it suddenly didn’t anymore.
Oregon State responded with its third rushing touchdown of the night on a 27-yard run by B.J. Baylor — who tallied 20 carries for 111 yards and two touchdowns, and paced a steady Beavers rushing attack that piled up 242 yards on 4.8 yards per carry — with less than seven minutes left to tie the game again.
The Beavers defense then stopped UW short on a fourth-and-1 quarterback sneak moments later. The Oregon State offense rushed five more times to set up inside the 10, took its final timeout with three seconds remaining, and Everett Hayes chipped in the winning 24-yard field goal as time expired.
“It was a hard-fought battle with a lot of plays made by both teams,” Huskies coach Jimmy Lake said. … They made a couple more plays than we did towards the end there.”
Indeed, when it was over, the scoreboard favored this surging Oregon State team that has now bested two teams in two weeks, in the Huskies, and last week USC, that were expected heading into this season to contend atop the Pac-12.
Fans around the stadium, clad in orange, roared as the kick floated through the uprights. Many hopped down to the turf to celebrate at midfield, climbing on shoulders and twirling towels.
The Huskies, many of them with their helmets in their hands, walked up the hill out of the stadium without words. This was a game they were in position to win in the final minutes. They would have extended their streak of victories against Oregon State to a full decade.
Instead, that streak ends at nine games, and the Huskies, which had won a pair of games after their troubling 0-2 start, head back to Seattle with a losing record again at 2-3.
“We’ve been battling and it hasn’t gone our way in a couple of games,” Lake said. “We’ve got to get better. We’ve got to improve.”
For the first time since their season-opener against Montana, the Huskies did score on their opening drive. They also ended a frustrating streak of three consecutive games that opened with three-and-outs on their first drive.
The first drive was mostly methodical. Dylan Morris completed a 14-yard pass to Terrell Bynum to convert a third-and-7 in the game’s opening moments, and completed all four of passes he threw on the drive, including a dart to Terrell Bynum, that the fifth-year receiver hauled in on the run before outstepping the Oregon State secondary on his way to the end zone for a 44-yard score.
The offensive momentum stalled there for a while, though. UW didn’t reach the end zone again in the half, settling only for a field goal as the second quarter ended.
Late in the first, the Huskies ended an Oregon State drive, which it seemed would surely result in the tying score early on, just outside of the red zone. The Beavers had marched down the field on a drive that summed up much of what made their offense most effective against UW — running on nine of 10 plays to push the ball to the 18.
Facing third-and-5, Nolan hustled toward the sideline to escape pressure, and completed a jump pass to Tyjon Lindsay which would have extended the drive, but Nolan was ruled out of bounds, the play was not reviewable, and Oregon State was left to try for a 39-yard field goal, which missed left.
What appeared to be an early break for the Huskies, and a chance to push their lead to two scores, was fleeting. UW took over, but lost the ball seconds later when Oregon State forced a fumble deep in Huskies territory on Cameron Davis’ first carry of the game.
It was an instant red zone opportunity, and Oregon State capitalized. Garfield High School product Tre’Shaun Harrison and Baylor each carried the ball once, setting up former Camas standout Jack Colletto’s third touchdown in two games. Like he did twice last week against USC, Colletto took a direct snap and barreled forward for a 3-yard score that made it 7-7 moments into the second quarter.
Oregon State took its first lead on its following drive, again running through UW’s defense before Baylor eventually strolled in for a 5-yard score.
The next two drives resulted in exchanged interceptions — Oregon State linebacker Avery Roberts snatched a wayward pass from Morris, only for UW safety Asa Turner to intercept Nolan two plays later — before the Huskies cut the lead to 14-10 at the break with Peyton Henry’s 20-yard field goal after coming up short on three tries to convert a first-and-goal from the 6 on their final drive of the half.
Oregon State extended its lead back to seven midway through the third quarter on Hayes’ 29-yard field goal before the Huskies responded with their fourth-quarter touchdowns.
UW now has the next week off to regroup before hosting UCLA on Oct. 16.
“We’re always trying to grow and develop, seeing what works, seeing what doesn’t work,” Lake said. “We’ll do a huge evaluation on what we’re doing all three phases. There’s a lot of good things, but there’s also things we can improve. This is going to be a good week to do that with the bye week.
“But, even when it’s not a bye week we’re always doing that. What’s working? What’s not working? What can put us in a good advantage to win this next football game? And that will all be looked at, just like it is every single week, but now it will really be looked at with two weeks (until) our next game.”
This story was originally published October 2, 2021 at 9:35 PM.
