2008 Previews: Washington

By Tim Cottrell
Sports Writer/Designer
Published: June 26, 2008

Washington is Team No. 17 on our preview list. Previews of all 65 BCS conference schools, plus Notre Dame and state schools, will be posted daily in no particular order. To view all previews, click here.

As I pored over the available information on Washington I wound up feeling a bit depressed.

While the Huskies are still young virtually everywhere, they do return a superstar quarterback in Jake Locker, plenty of unproven talent at running back and wide receiver and enough playmakers here and there to be pretty good this year.

Unfortunately for them, their schedule is just too tough.

They’ve got three non-conference games they probably aren’t winning (although it wouldn’t surprise me if they somehow won two of them), and while they’re likely to be a much better team this year, the rest of the conference has passed them by so thoroughly there’s virtually no chance of them winning more than three conference games.

All that equals bad news for coach Ty Willingham, who narrowly escaped being fired last year. The Willingham Watch will probably be out in full force after Week 3.

Here’s the schedule:

Aug. 30: at Oregon
Going to Eugene with a young team is no way to start a season.

Sept. 6: BYU
The Huskies really shouldn’t win this game, but they did beat Boise State last year in Seattle so the possibility exists. They’ll make the Cougars work for it at the very least.

Sept. 13: Oklahoma
This will be a bad loss. A BAD loss.

Sept. 27: Stanford
Quite likely to be win No. 1 on the year.

Oct. 4: at Arizona
The Wildcats should be pretty good this year, but we’ll get a feel for how good Washington can be in this one, win or lose.

Oct. 18: Oregon State
UDub is going to have to have this one.

Oct. 25: Notre Dame
Athlon calls this one a toss-up. I think the Irish will be greatly improved.

Nov. 1: at USC
Another bad loss.

Nov. 8: Arizona State
See: Oklahoma and USC.

Nov. 15: UCLA
I could see the possibility of an upset here, especially with whatever leftover Rick Neuheisel feelings there are in Seattle, but Neuheisel should have the Bruins moving forward by this point of the year.

Nov. 22: at Washington State
Even with all these bad years over the last five seasons, the Huskies have still managed to keep things even with the Cougs. And they should be able to go on the road and take this one.

Dec. 6: at California
And one final bad loss to end the year.

I don’t really see any way with that schedule that UDub can do better than 3-9 or 4-8. They might get to five wins, but regardless it looks like another down year in Seattle. Will the promise of stronger years ahead be enough to save Willingham for another year?