Pac-12 football: Washington schools share each other’s misery after falling out of top 10

Stanford coach David Shaw likes to say there are no upsets in Pac-12 football, because of the conference’s depth.

Yet more of an explanation is necessary for what happened last weekend, when each Washington school absorbed its first loss of the season and fell out of the top 10 in the polls. Washington and Washington State produced a total of 10 points in respective losses to Arizona State and California, which had struggled defensively in recent weeks.

ASU allowed 301 rushing yards to Stanford’s Bryce Love, yet held quarterback Jake Browning and the Washington offense to 230 total yards in a 13-7 victory. Cal gave up 28 second-half points to Oregon’s reserve quarterbacks, before forcing seven turnovers — including five interceptions of Logan’s Luke Falk — in a 37-3 win over WSU.

The Cougars can take some of the blame for their turnovers against Cal. In contrast, ASU’s defensive performance was made even more remarkable by the fact Washington didn’t have any turnovers. The Huskies just couldn’t move the ball consistently, while missing two short field-goal attempts. Browning was sacked five times.

Asked about the Sun Devils’ pass rush, Washington coach Chris Petersen said, “There’s no story behind it. They’ve got good players and we didn’t block ’em good enough. They didn’t bring a ton of pressure or anything like that.”

Washington lost two starters, left tackle Trey Adams and cornerback Jordan Miller, to season-ending injuries. Miller was hurt on the 4th-and-3 completion that kept the Huskies from regaining possession in the last two minutes.

So any thought of the Apple Cup contestants bringing perfect records into their late-November meeting was destroyed, and now the Pac-12 North race gets even more interesting with Stanford on the rise.

Raising Arizonas

The demise of the Washington schools coincided with the ascent of the Arizona schools. Arizona and Arizona State are in the thick of the South race, considering each team still plays USC. Arizona has emerged with former No. 2 quarterback Khalil Tate producing wins over Colorado and UCLA, while he rushed for 557 yards in two games.

In a 30-24 win Sept. 22, Utah may have benefited from not facing Tate, who took over when Brandon Dawkins was injured in the first quarter against Colorado (although the Utes held Tate to 33 yards on 10 carries in 2016). Colorado and UCLA couldn’t stop him. “We’ve seen some of that stuff in practice, but he’s run faster in the games,” said Arizona coach Rich Rodriguez. “His open-field speed has been not a surprise, but better than we thought.”

Right call

During a timeout after Utah’s offense initially lined up for a 2-point attempt, USC defensive coordinator Clancy Pendergast guessed correctly about Utah’s play-call — a designed throwback that the Utes had used earlier this season — coach Clay Helton said on the Pac-12 teleconference Tuesday.

“We got that call, and had the perfect defense called, and the kids executed it well,” Helton said. Utah quarterback Troy Williams tried to run and was stopped 2 yards short of the goal line in a 28-27 loss to the No. 11 Trojans, who visit Notre Dame this week.