The Washington Huskies really needed to take a step up after seeming to stagnate the last three seasons. Washington's record in 2010, 2011 and 2012 was a pretty even-keeled 7-6. Steve Sarkisian really needed some marquee wins in 2013 to ensure his coaching longevity in Seattle.
Everything seemed to be in place for this season to be an extremely successful one. Washington returned most of their key offensive players, including Keith Price, Bishop Sankey, Austin Seferian-Jenkins, and Kasen Williams. The Huskies were re-opening one of the toughest places to play college football in Husky Stadium. And Washington had their easiest non-conference schedule in years, starting off with a season-opener against Boise State. Could Washington learn enough from their Vegas Bowl loss last year to recover and pull off the win?
Yes. Yes they did. It went off swimmingly for the Huskies, dominating Boise State from start to finish in an absolute stomping. And it might have been the win that made Pat Haden think Sarkisian would be the man to resurrect USC football.
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It was impressive was how the Huskies romped in the 2nd half. Boise State appeared to be in great position to make a tight game of it when they marched downfield on their opening drive of the 2nd half and kicked the FG to trim the lead to 10-6, but from then on it was all Huskies, as the next 28 points were all Washington touchdowns. Whatever the coaches were preaching in the locker room, it worked. And in the bigger picture, you have to be impressed at how focused, confident and poised this team was in a setting that could have had them distracted and overly wound up. Instead, they looked like a team on a mission. And this was probably one of the very few times you could look at a Boise State game and say the guy on the opposing sideline out-coached Chris Petersen.