Washington’s 17-12 Win more about No. 17 USC’s Loss for Pac-12
Written by Ryan Wright
Twitter: @HogManInLA
Games in the Coliseum are supposed to be give-me wins for the USC Trojans (3-2, 0-2) but the Pac-12 offices forgot to notify members of the conference’s North Division before the 2015 season started. Thursday night, the Washington Huskies (3-2, 1-1) stormed into Los Angeles handing Steve Sarkisian and company their second consecutive home loss winning 17-12.
The win for Washington had to be extra sweet by not only knocking off one of the bluebloods of the college football world but also showing their former head coach what they left behind in Seattle for recruiting riches in Southern California. The loss for USC essentially assures a shot at the college football playoffs will not happen this season and the chances of a Pac-12 South Division title are rapidly diminishing.
The win for Huskies’ second-year head coach Chris Petersen was his most significant in his brief tenure in Seattle. The game plan was simple, throw everything but the kitchen sink at Trojans’ starting quarterback Cody Kessler to disrupt USC’s up-tempo offense and feed running back Myles Gaskin the ball on offense, and it worked. Kessler finished the game 16-of-29 with 156 yards passing throwing two interceptions without a touchdown pass. The Huskies sacked Kessler five times and knocked him down several other times never letting the senior get comfortable in the pocket or into a rhythm with his receiving corps.
True freshman running back Myles Gaskin carried the load for Washington picking up 134 yards on the ground off 22 carries with a game winning 1-yard touchdown early in the fourth quarter. Huskies’ starting quarterback Jake Browning was more the game manager completing 16-of-32 passes for 137 yards with one interception.
Washington needed some trickery to take the lead early in the third quarter when receiver Marvin Hall completed the backend of a double-pass for a 27-yard touchdown toss to Joshua Perkins. Perkins led Washington with 57 receiving yards off four receptions with one receiving touchdown and Jaydon Mickens had six receptions for 49 yards.
The Huskies’ defense held up the motto of a bend but don’t break defense shutting down USC on third down conversions turning away 12 of 13 attempts. USC was held to three field goal attempts when in striking distance hitting 2-of-3 missing a 45-yard attempt with 3:44 left on the game clock.
USC did have a couple of bright spots with running back Tre Madden picking up 120 yards on 17 carries and Ronald Jones II adding 65 yards on eight totes with a 1-yard touchdown run early in the fourth quarter. Do-everything athlete JuJu Smith-Schuster had six receptions for 82 yards.
Outside of the few bright spots for the Trojans, the night belong to Washington defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski and his squad. Washington handed USC their first back-to-back home loss since the 2001 season with the first setback coming in a 41-31 loss to Stanford in Week 3.
Sarkisian has quickly come under fire in LA after posting a 9-4 season a year ago. A drunken rant during a team function shifted an unwanted spotlight on the former Washington coach oddly putting him on the proverbial hot seat despite his success on the recruiting trail and USC finally getting their roster numbers up after the “Reggie Bush sanctions” were lifted.
The road forward for USC is as difficult a schedule as any other team in the nation with four ranked teams, at No. 15 Notre Dame, vs. No. 5 Utah, at No. 23 Cal, and vs. No. 20 UCLA to end the season. The schedule roundup includes a dangerous Arizona team on Nov. 7 and a forgotten by talented Oregon team on Nov. 21.
A 6-6 finish to the regular season could spell disaster for Sarkisian with a fan base that became accustomed to winning national championships under Pete Carroll. Tough to believe the Trojans would run Sarkisian off after two seasons coupled with his top recruiting efforts but college football fans have increasingly lost patience for head coaches to develop their players over a 3-4 year period especially with high preseason expectations cemented with an AP ranking of No. 8.
Photo credit: Jae C. Hong; No. 22 Justin Davis looks for running room against Washington in the first half.