September 2, 2008
Washington in the way?
Written by: David
As soon as I saw Washington on the schedule I was taken back to 1996 and the one blemish on our record that year. I remember watching that game and just dying at how they blew the game early and couldn’t recover. The difference this year is Washington is not nearly the same team. They are dead last in the Pac-10 in total defense, points scored and points allowed, and they are number nine in total offense with a whopping 242 yards. Pitta had almost that many by himself.
While I am not nearly as worried this year, the four fumbles last week sure didn’t instill any confidence. On the other hand, Washington got stomped pretty good last week by Oregon, and this is not the Oregon with Dennis Dixon. This game should be a nice step up from last week without being overwhelmed, but being a road game is the x-factor with BYU teams of late.
Of course, the worst part of it all is that BYU is screwed either way if Washington ends up having a down year. If BYU loses, then they lost to the worst of the Pac 10 (or at least close to it). If BYU wins, then they only beat a bad team from the Pac 10. Either way we need to win this thing and hope that Washington can over achieve from what we’re expecting from them at this point in the season.
The other factor that isn’t mentioned that much is the emotional impact that a loss to a team from a non-BCS conference does to a team like Washington. Sometimes the very loss to a “lowly” non-BCS conference team demoralizes a team like Washington and causes them to have a season worse than they would have had otherwise.