Given Washington's bumpy, 2-2 start to its Pac-12 Conference play, being ahead 28-14 at home against the 12th-ranked Oregon Ducks early in the third quarter Saturday had to make the Huskies feel large and in charge.

Which, of course, turned out to be the problem.

These 2019 Huskies have not earned the right to cockiness in a conference game. They are a middling team in a fairly soft Power 5 outfit, and can't get away with easing against the league's one good team.

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In the middle of the night in Tucson the past Saturday, the Washington Huskies apparently woke up screaming. Well, maybe not screaming, but mad. Or startled. Or disturbed. Maybe just perturbed.

Whatever the calibration, it was halftime against the Arizona Wildcats, who were ahead, 17-13. The Huskies just completed a sixth consecutive quarter of football that bordered on the comatose. Since they ended up winning 51-27, clearly something hysterical, spiritual or pharmaceutical happened in the intermission locker room.

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After six consecutive quarters of brutal college football, the Washington Huskies heard the giant sucking sound of a season going down the drain. Or, it could have been the Oregon Ducks snorting heavily. Whatever the source of the early audio horror on a warm Saturday night in Tucson against the University of Arizona, a moment was at hand.

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Based on the Monday night game in which the San Francisco 49ers gashed the Browns for 275 yards rushing in a 31-3 triumph, here's a brilliantly conceived game plan for the Seahawks game in Cleveland Sunday: Give the ball 40 times to Chris Carson and his fellow running backs, leaving about 10 pass attempts for Russell Wilson.

The Seahawks would win, by about 41-17. Pete Carroll, you can thank me later.

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Halfway through the regular season, the Washington Huskies offense is sixth in points per game in the Pac-12 Conference (34), eighth in yards per pass attempt (8.0), ninth in total passing yards (244.7), and 10th in third-down conversions (40 percent).

If someone had told any discerning Huskies fan in August that those would be the mid-season numbers, he or she likely would have said, "How did Jake Browning get a fifth year of eligibility?"

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And you thought the Washington Huskies' annual dork game was the 20-19 home loss to Cal, a contest that at least had the nearly three-hour weather delay that might be twisted, by a guy with huge forearms, into some some sort of pathetic excuse.

Turns out the dork game was Saturday night in Palo Alto. Unless, of course, this is a double-dork season.

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News Monday that the four California schools in the Pac-12 Conference were given legal permission to allow their football players in the future to receive outside income, which is not allowed for Washington players, did not muss a single one of coach Chris Petersen tightly coiffed hairs.

He has a football game to win Saturday, fools.

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Despite all the controversies and travail surrounding USC, the most scandal-ridden university in the country (non-sports as well as sports), it is still Trojans football. Even if they were now supposedly running an Air Raid offense with a third-string quarterback, they were still 3-1 and ranked 21st after a surprising win last week over 10th-ranked Utah.

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It's tempting to suggest that Brigham Young University picked a dubious opponent against which to celebrate the anniversary of their one and only national championship. That controversial 1984 title came at the expense of the University of Washington, which finished second in the polls despite playing a much stronger schedule than the Cougars.

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The disturbance in the purple force was palpable. The Huskies a week ago lost a conference game at home to underdog Cal, thanks to a combination of dropped passes, missed tackles and dubious play-calling that combined to scream "overrated" at eardrum-assault levels.

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At 1:22 a.m., the ordeal came to an end.

Husky Stadium, the scene of one of the most unusual Washington football games in its storied history, emptied out early Sunday morning not unlike some university nightclub or frat party at closing time. Senses were deadened. Hangovers were coming.

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Fans have always known that team sports have hierarchies, the haves vs. the have-nots, royals vs. serfs, titans vs. runts, Monstars vs. Michael Jordan and Bugs Bunny, MLB vs. Mariners. In a way, it's part of the industry's charm, because everyone remembers where they were and what they felt when Cougars beat the Huskies in 1997 and went to the Rose Bowl for the first time since the continents rose from the seas and cooled.

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Bob Schloredt, the quarterback who led the University of Washington to Rose Bowl victories following the 1959 and 1960 seasons, helping transform West Coast football, has died at 79, according to his family via UW athletics.

The 1959-60 Huskies under coach Jim Owens outscored 22 opponents by a combined 525-180, including the Pasadena defeats of Big 10 champions Wisconsin, 44-8, and Minnesota, 17-7.

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One of the more callous aspects of college football is playing out at Washington, where two highly regarded quarterbacks, redshirt freshmen Jacob Sirmon and Colson Yankoff, plan to leave the Huskies program to seek more playing time at other schools.

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The Seahawks weren't the only local football team that was made better over the weekend. The NFL draft also helped the Washington Huskies. Their loss of eight players to the pros -- only Alabama (10) and Ohio State (nine) contributed more -- was a net gain for the program. There's nothing more impressive to top-tier recruits than for a school to be known as a pipeline to Pete Carroll, Bill Belichick,  and . . . well, the Arizona Cardinals.

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If you thought the 2018 Apple Cup was enhanced because the teams were good and the outcome was nationally relevant -- and hugely entertaining because of snow --  you might want get on your giddy early for the 2019 chapter.

Former Eastern Washington University star QB Gage Gubrud won his NCAA appeal Saturday for an additional year of eligibility and will spend his final season as a graduate transfer at Washington State.

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College football recruiting for most schools and fans is like ordering from a menu written in Chinese. Pictures are helpful, and previous experiences of random selections generally turned out all right, even if it was never clear what was being eaten.

For many recruits, however, the analogy is the chef from Seinfeld. For reasons often not clear, they are surprised with a harsh denial: "No soup for you!" More on this later.

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The most unheralded, yet best annual event in Seattle sports went off so well Thursday it prompted a tough, square-built retired cop to get all gushy.

"An outstanding deal," said Garth Gaines. "It's been fantastic -- the Washington Athletic Club is a great place in a great location.

"And the award is very meaningful -- voted on by opposing players. That's the cherry on top. Not a popularity contest. It's how you played."

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PASADENA, CA. -- It's not fair to say the Washington Huskies came all the way across an 18-year void for naught. But it is fair to say that that the Pac-12 Conference champions came away with little from the Rose Bowl Tuesday afternoon, because they showed up with neither plan nor purpose sufficient for such a large occasion.

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PASADENA, CA. -- Truth be told, Kaleb McGary didn't want to be an offensive lineman. Nor was he wild about going to college in the ginormous city of Seattle, where there was way too much concrete for his country-boy tastes. A better fit seemed to be the University of Wisconsin in small-town Madison, where every third mammal in the state was a cow.

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