“One Man’s Opinion” by Gordon Curvey

The University Of Washington football program has come a long long way since former head coach Ty Willingham was let go after going winless. Never in my wildest dreams that I thought the program would recover this quick. But guess what? They have sports fans.

After the best record in almost 20 years the Huskies finished with a 12 and 1 record and a Pac-12 title and finally a place in the College Football Playoffs!! WOW! This is unreal!! And all U-Dub fans are thrilled to death.

But guess who the Huskies have to play on New Years’s Eve? Oh oh..the #1 team in the land, the Alabama Crimson Tide in the Peach Bowl in Atlanta. They are a great team on both sides of the ball. A “professional team” that happens to be a college team. The Huskies will have to play a perfect game to beat Alabama. They will be playing near their home so they will have plenty of Alabama fans in the stands.

Washington ranked #4 on latest poll behind Alabama, Ohio State and Clemson. The were ahead of Penn State who beat Wisconsin in a big time comeback. People are already saying the Crimson Tide are overwhelming favorites to repeat as the national champs.

Some say Washington has the chance to beat Alabama even if Alabama were rarely tested during the regular season. UW QB Jake Browning is no joke and he led a team that this season had just one game, a 26-13 loss to Southern Cal that they did not score less than 31 points. In the last two games, both wins, U-Dub beat top 25 teams in Colorado and Washington State by a combined score of 86-27.

And Washington’s D ranks fourth nationally in yards allowed per play and is tied for eighth in points allowed per game. All this could give the powerful Alabama team some trouble sports fans. I guess we in Seattle can only hope.

Truth be told Alabama is strong everywhere except maybe their field goal kicker. But everywhere else they are strong. Professional type players everywhere. Of course for the Huskies to win they CANNOT have turnovers and cannot have forced turnovers. This cannot happen if they want to be Alabama on December 31st in the ATL.

For the Huskies to pull the upset, Peterson has to have a strong game and hopefully the game breaker long passes to his speedy wideouts will open up the running game. And of course the defense has to have a extremely effective game. This could happen readers. A lot of the nation has not seen the University Of Washington Huskies play. They have not been on national TV to much like Alabama has been. Fans will see a great college team in our Washington team. Will be back with more news and views on the upcoming game right here on Seattle, Washington based “Sports Inner City Online”