Washington Football: Projecting the Rest of the Huskies' Season

The Washington Huskies find themselves 5-2 (3-1) with both of their losses coming against teams ranked in the Top 14 of the BCS rankings.

Washington opened the year with wins over FCS Eastern Washington and Hawaii then responded with a disappointing 51-38 in Lincoln, NE against No. 14 Nebraska.

Three consecutive Pac-12 conference wins over the Cal Golden Bears, Utah Utes and Colorado Buffaloes brought the Huskies into the BCS Top 25.

Last week the Huskies were crushed by No. 7 Stanford, 65-21 and hopes of competing in the Pac-12 title game is all but over.

Here’s how the Huskies’ remaining schedule should play out.

Wins: Arizona, Oregon State

The two “certain” wins remaining on the Huskies schedule are against the 2-5 (1-4) Arizona Wildcats at home and the 2-5 (2-2) Oregon State Beavers on the road.

The Wildcats got their first win over an FBS team in almost a years time when they beat UCLA on national television Thursday night, but that still doesn’t change the fact that the Wildcats are one of the worst teams in the Pac-12.

Arizona ranks 105th in all of college football in points allowed on defense, giving up an average of 33.9 points per game. Arizona’s run offense is also terrible as prior to their win over UCLA, the Wildcats averaged 71.8 yards per game on the ground ranking No. 119 out of 120 teams.

The Beavers are equally bad, only recently showing signs of light. The Huskies and Chris Polk will be able to run all day against both teams and slow down their one-dimensional offensive attacks.

Losses: Oregon

Based on what I saw against Stanford last Saturday, I don’t see any way that the Huskies will be able to stop Oregon’s dynamic offense. If Stanford’s backs can put up over 400 yards on the ground, what will LaMichael James, Kenjon Barner and De’Anthony Thomas do to that run defense?

Oregon’s defense has been questionable at times, but I still see them coming away with a victory. Oregon is the only “certain” loss remaining.

Tossups: USC, Washington State

The two games on the Huskies’ schedule that will decide where Washington will be bowling are on November 12th against USC and November 26th against Washington State. When the Trojans and Huskies face off, the story will be Washington head coach Steve Sarkisian facing his former team again.

Sarkisian is 2-0 against the Trojans and he looks to make that three in a row. However, I think this is the year that USC breaks the streak. The Trojans offense, led by Matt Barkley and Robert Woods, is simply too powerful for the Huskies’ questionable defense to slow down.

As for rival Washington State, the only reason they are on here are “tossups” is because the game is a rivalry game. I see the Huskies taking care of business and getting an easy double digit win, but you can never be too certain.

Projected Record: 8-4 (6-3)

When it’s all said and done, the Huskies project to finish at 8-4 (6-3) and will be around third in the Pac-12 North standings. Washington will be around the Top 25—where they are now—and should go to the Holiday Bowl.

It may not be the season Huskies’ fans were hoping for, but there is nothing wrong with a Holiday Bowl bid. There is still a lot of football left to be played and the Huskies need to take care of business.