The Washington Huskies hit the road for the first time this season and really impressed, knocking off Illinois, 34-24, to improve to 3-0 on the year. For a team that has really struggled to win away from home in recent years, the strong play of Keith Price and Bishop Hankey gives the Huskies a significant amount of momentum heading into Pac-12 play.
Washington vs. Illions reaction: Huskies erupt offensively in 34-24 win
Keith Price, Bishop Sankey and the UW offense was just too much for the Illini to handle this past weekend.
Mike DiNovo-USA TODAY Sports
Here was some reaction from both sides following Saturday’s showdown.
UW Dawg Pound sung the praises of Sankey, who accumulated nearly 300 total yards of offense:
The best player on the field ran for 208 yards and caught three passes for another 63 yards in another ho-hum game. Who am I kidding? Bishop Sankey is an absolute beast. His jump-cut in the backfield to avoid defenders and blockers is one of the best in the nation. As a Seattle Seahawks fan, certain parts of his game remind me of Shaun Alexander. Not the run-out-of-bounds-avoid-all-contact part. The ability to bait defenders into his blockers; he grasps every inch of field that his blockers give him. Then he avoids going down easily. Sorry, Illinois game.
Our Illini blog, The Champaign Room, was a bit letdown after Illinois blew out Cincinnati last weekend:
After last week’s dismantling of Cincinnati, hopes were running high and some people started getting dreams of pulling off consecutive upsets. Sadly, it wasn’t meant to be.
The Illini didn’t embarrass themselves at the Chicago homecoming game, but that’s pretty much it. I shouldn’t sound so dour about a game in which our boys beat the spread, but I feel like that was more a function of Washington not capitalizing on opportunities instead of Illinois actually doing much of anything. The Huskies grossly outgained the Illini 514 to 296. When that happens you’re going to lose 99 percent of the time.
Our Big Ten hub, Off Tackle Empire, does see a bit of a silver lining for the Illini following a bad day in the conference:
It may have been too much to expect the Illini to win this game (Washington is a top-25 team, after all, while the Illini won just two games last year and are still coached by Tim Beckman), and the Illini fans still have a lot to be hopeful about, but given the rest of the B1G’s performance yesterday this loss stung.
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