Washington was favored by 31 points against the Buffaloes but ended up beating them by 47 in a 54-7 blowout at home in Alaska Airlines Husky Stadium where they are unbeaten this season. Holding Colorado to three punts, one turnover on downs and a safety in the first half, the Huskies scored back-to-back-to-back TD’s on their first three possessions of the game as well as another TD and field goal before the half on top of the safety which put them up 14-0 after the 1st Qtr and 33-0 at the break. The second half was more of the same with Washington scoring two more TD’s on their first three possessions to make it 47-0 before the Buffaloes finally got points on the board when the Husky secondary fell asleep and allowed J. T. Shrout to complete a 69 yard TD pass to Montana Lemonious-Craig making it 47-7 with 1:45 left in the 3rd Qtr. Washington would score one more time on a 15 yard Dylan Morris TD pass to Sam Adams II. The Buffaloes had two more possessions but threw an interception on the first and had to turnover the ball on downs after the second, a 10 play drive that ended on 4th and 18 at the Washington 44 yard line with a Husky sack and loss of 9 yards.
Washington QB Michael Penix-Jr, college football’s No. 1 passer with 3,869 yards, connected on 19-of-31 for 229 yards, 1 TD to Sophomore WR Jalen McMillan, and 1 interception. The Huskies did throw 1 pick but it was from back-up Dylan Morris in relief who also connected on 4-of-7 for 66 yards and another TD. Washington would add 280 yards rushing on 43 attempts and five more TD’s to their 295 total yards in the air. Senior RB Wayne Taulapapa and Sophomore Cameron Davis would rush 23 times collectively for 166 of those 280 yards on the ground as well as two TD’s each with Junior RB Richard Newton picking up the 5th. For Colorado, Senior RB Alex Fontenot picked up 71 yards on 11 carries but after losing 33 yards in the ground game the Buffaloes only rushed for a total of 79 yards on 33 attempts and never made it into the end zone.
As one would imagine the game stats were brutally in favor of the Huskies who recorded 19 more 1st downs, 29-10; 295 Passing Yards compared to 123; 280 Rushing Yards compared to 79; and converted third downs at a rate of 54% compared to 25% for the Buffaloes. In addition, Colorado fumbled the ball three times on top of the interception. As reported by Sean Quinton for the Seattle Times; “The 47-point margin was UW’s biggest conference win since beating Oregon 70-21 in 2016. As KJR’s Dave “Softy” Mahler pointed out on Twitter, Kalen DeBoer’s nine wins are the most ever for a first-year Husky coach.
How bad is Colorado? Well Sean Quinton had this to say; “Any talk of this one being a trap game went out the window fast. But boy, it’s hard to watch this Colorado team play football. The Buffs are far-and-away the worst team in the conference, and have lost by more than 20 points in all 10 of their losses.” Mercury News reporter Jon Wilner pointed out on Twitter that, “Colorado has failed to cover spreads of 30 or more points in three straight games against Oregon, USC and UW. It wasn’t just the talent gap that was apparent; the Buffs were a sloppy team Saturday night.There was a long snap on a punt attempt that sailed 30 yards behind the punter and into the end zone for a UW safety. And just before halftime, the Buffs fumbled a kickoff, gifting the Huskies another three points.”
Colorado’s final loss of the season will come next Saturday against a Utah team that not only has to win but will need lots of other pieces to fall in place in order to get a rematch with USC in the PAC-12 Conference Championship. The Utes need to beat Colorado, plus have Washington beat Washington State, have Oregon State beat Oregon and UCLA beat Cal.” For the Huskies, they’re not out of it either but it’s a little less straight-forward. The Huskies need to beat Washington State, plus have Oregon State beat Oregon and either Cal beat UCLA or the combination of UCLA beats Cal and Colorado beats Utah Cal beating UCLA seems highly unlikely but probably their only chance as the thought of needing Colorado to beat Utah—well that’s laughable.