No. 5 Washington almost got shut out on Saturday at Arizona State. It didn’t, but the Huskies still lost a huge upset to the Sun Devils, 13-7. They’re one of four top-10 teams to lose to an unranked team in a wild Week 7.
Arizona State sealed a Washington upset with just the dumbest, funniest catch
Also, the Huskies fell flat on the channel they’ve been publicly squabbling with.
Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports
The only scoring until Jake Browning’s touchdown for Washington almost 55 minutes into the game: a 1-yard touchdown run by ASU’s Kalen Ballage and a pair of Sun Devil field goals by Brandon Ruiz. Washington’s Van Soderberg missed 21- and 27-yard field goals in the third quarter. Those six missed points were, in the end, a huge deal.
The play that sealed it: a fourth-down conversion for ASU with two minutes left, when Manny Wilkins’ pass to Ceejhay French-Love somehow got through a pack of UW defenders.
I have no idea how that became a completed pass. Pac-12 football’s great.
This game was broadcast on ESPN, and it started at 10:45 p.m. ET. That’s notable because UW has been publicly beefing with the network over the last week and change. Washington coach Chris Petersen thinks ESPN’s continual slotting of Huskies games late at night on the East Coast is costing his team exposure.
ESPN has been publicly trolling the coach in response. College GameDay analyst Kirk Herbstreit has said the Huskies should be glad ESPN’s showing their games at all. The spat between the team and the TV channel will get awkward soon, thanks to Playoff ranking politics. Washington might get a bad initial Playoff ranking later this month because of its iffy strength of schedule, and those rankings are broadcast on ESPN. Part of why Washington hasn’t gotten primetime games? It’s played weak opponents.
In any case, Washington would’ve been better off if the game started at 4 a.m. ET and was broadcast on Lifetime. It was that ugly all the way around.
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