The Huskies fight off the upset bug

Confetti from a college football weekend

Michael Powell

The rat poison came flying off the shelves of college football on Saturday.

That’s Nick Saban’s term for toxic satisfaction, brought on by excessive praise.

Mack Brown calls it poisonous cheese and promised to warn his North Carolina team about it. Either he forgot to, or the Tar Heels just don’t know jack about this process. The undefeated Heels were 24-point favorites over a team that had beaten only William & Mary. They lost anyway.

At the end of D-Con Day, Washington seemed in need of antitoxin, even though the Huskies were at home against an Arizona State squad that had been shut out by Fresno State and hadn’t won a game since they beat Southern Utah in the opener.

They somehow survived, 15-7, coughing all the way, and remain in charge of the Pac-12, and hold onto a chance to  become the dying conference’s third team to make the College Football Playoff.

The savior was cornerback Michael Powell. He has played 28 games for Washington, a Seattle native who was both a sprinter and a shot putter at O’Dea High. He was a walk-on at Washington when Jimmy Lake was coaching, and when Kalen DeBoer became the coach in 2022 he gave Powell a scholarship, upon the urging of teammates. “His stubbornness,” DeBoer said, “makes him special.”

But Powell had only one career interception before Arizona State’s Trenton Bourguet broke the huddle. The Sun Devils led, 7-6, and had a fourth-and-3 on the Washington 11. Coach Kenny Dillingham said he might have tried a field goal, with 8:11 left, but he didn’t have enough healthy offensive linemen to prevent the Huskies from blocking one, for the second time. Melquon Stovall was the receiver on Powell’s side, and Powell said he recognized the formation and also sensed a different purpose in Stovall’s approach. If Bourguet looked Powell’s way, something was going to happen.

What did Powell have to lose? Well, a lot. The Huskies had just come off a crowd-storming win over Oregon that made it difficult to focus on the arrival of a Pac-12 bottom-feeder. Michael Penix, anointed as the new Heisman favorite, came into the game with only three interceptions, but the Sun Devils intercepted two.

But Powell broke on Bourguet’s pass and gathered it in. The rest of the assignment was the 89 yards in front of him. He made it, despite Bourguet’s pursuit. Washington now led 12-7. The Huskies wound up winning without an offensive touchdown, and are now the only unbeaten team in Pac-12 play.

Chuck Morrell is one of UW’s defensive coordinators. “He used to tell me that if the quarterback catches me, that’s an issue,” Powell said. “I said, ‘I can’t get caught.’ I’m just grateful that God made my legs strong enough to get there.”

Rat poison usually affects the legs, but first it invades the mind. The Huskies were fairly confident that ASU wouldn’t challenge them. So were the wizards of odds, who made Washington a 27 ½ point favorite.

Then the players took over. Washington ran the ball 13 times and gained 13 yards. Arizona State hung onto the ball for 37 minutes and 29 seconds. Bourguet was never sacked. Washington never had a pass play longer than 21 yards, and converted only three of 11 third downs.

The anemic night lowered Washington’s scoring average to 40.1 points, and Penix is now throwing for “only” 368 yards per game.

The good thing about rat poisoning, at least for the elite teams, is that you build immunity.. The Huskies will not be unprepared for the rest of the schedule which, after the next game with Stanford, features USC, Utah and Oregon State in a row.

Mainly, it’s heartening to know that teams aren’t throwing in towels, or filling out transfer applications, when their seasons go haywire.

More confetti from a college football weekend:

Virginia 34, North Carolina 27

– The Tar Heels have traditionally struggled with Virginia, no matter the resume, but the Cavaliers had been beaten down during Tony Elliott’s year-and-a-half as head coach, both by the opposition and the shooting death of three players last fall. Among other things, Virginia had averaged 99.5 rushing yards in 2023. Here they gained 228 and improved their record to 2-5 this year, and 5–12 for Elliott. Beyond that, it was the first time a Virginia team had ever, as in ever, beaten a Top 10 opponent on the road.

– North Carolina (6-1) led 24-14 early in the third quarter but couldn’t slow down quarterback Tony Muskett, who went 20 for 30 and threw 12 completions to Malik Washington, including the game-winner from 14 yards.

– Drake Maye’s chances at postseason honors took a hit as he hit only 24 of 48 passes for the Tar Heels. He might have been impatient because UNC only had the ball for 22:54.

Texas 31, Houston 24

– The Longhorns (6-1) had two weeks to overcome the sting of a loss to Oklahoma, and came out firing. They led 21-0 midway through the second quarter. Apparently there was rat poison dwelling in the orange slices at halftime, because Houston (3-4) tied it and had a chance to create overtime at the end. But Donovan Smith couldn’t connect on fourth down at the Texas 10-yard-line with 1:03 left.

– Houston coach Dana Holgorsen thought the Cougars got a raw deal when they appeared to have gotten a first down on the previous play. “I think the spot was horrible,” Holgorsen said. But Smith had a big game, throwing three touchdowns and hitting 32 of 46 of his attempts. Matthew Golden got two of those scores.

– Texas QB Quinn Ewers hurt his shoulder and missed the go-ahead drive, which was piloted by Maalik Murphy. C.J. Baxter cashed it with a 16-yard score. Texas could at least be comforted by Oklahoma’s similar struggles up north, as the Sooners had to come from behind to beat UCF, 31-29.

Florida State 38, Duke 20

– The Seminoles (7-0) might be ranked fourth, but reasonable folks might wonder why they’re not No. 1. They have beaten LSU and Clemson, and on Saturday they came behind to beat 16th-ranked Duke for their 13th consecutive win.

– Duke (5-2) led 10-0 at Tallahassee, stopped Florida State twice on fourth and one, allowed star receiver Keon Coleman to catch only two balls, and led 20-17 at halftime even though quarterback Riley Leonard was ultimately benched, thanks to a slow-responding ankle injury. Chandler Rivers had a pick-six for Dave Elko’s team, which passed up a field goal while leading by three and was stopped on fourth down.

– Jordan Travis remains the most underrated of the Heisman names. He hit 27 of 36 passes for a couple of touchdowns and ran 10 times for 62 yards, getting the go-ahead score in the process. The Seminoles are averaging 42.2 points.

Ohio State 20, Penn State 12

– Penn State (6-1) thought this year might be different, that new QB Drew Allar would provide the verve that his predecessors lacked, that the moat that separated the Nittany Lions from Michigan and Ohio State could be bridged at long last. Instead, they didn’t convert a third down until the fourth quarter and lost their seventh consecutive game to the Buckeyes. As Penn State fans will tell you without cue cards, James Franklin is now 3-17 against Top Ten teams.

– Allar was 18 for 42, and Franklin only called upon deluxe running backs Nicholas Singleton and Kaytron Allen 18 times, for 74 yards. A scoop-and-score touchdown by Curtis Jacobs was negated by a holding penalty. 

– Ohio State (7-0) keeps relying on its defense and on receiver Marvin Harrison Jr., who scored the most important touchdown and caught 11 passes for 162 yards. Quarterback Kyle McCord was efficient again, with 22-for-35 passing for 286 yards and no interceptions. Unless Penn State can rise up at home against Michigan on Nov. 11, the usual Big 10 protagonists should be undefeated at reckoning time on Nov. 25.

Utah 34, USC 32

– The Utes (6-1) have now beaten USC (6-2) three times in the past 53 weeks in three different locales: Salt Lake City, Las Vegas and now L.A. After Zachariah Branch’s punt return and Caleb Williams’ run had put the Trojans ahead with 1:46 left, Utah responded with Cole Becker’s 38-yard field goal at the end. Quarterback Bryson Barnes set it up with a brazen 26-yard run, punctuating a drive that was hastened by Bear Alexander’s roughing the passer penalty. That also carried a targeting violation that will remove Alexander from the first half of USC’s next game, at Cal.

– It was the first L.A. Coliseum loss for Williams and USC coach Lincoln Riley, who will miss the College Football Playoff for the second time in two seasons. Afterward, Riley bemoaned the heightened expectations everyone had for the Trojans, and their transfer-laden roster. This, traditionally, does not go over well with the cardinal-and-gold court of opinion. But, hey, maybe they can get another shot at Tulane in a bowl.

– Williams was 24 for 34 for 256 yards and didn’t have a TD pass, and the Trojans were outrushed 247-145. Meanwhile, a 3-star recruit named Sione Vaki played a little safety, caught five balls for 149 yards and two scores, and carried nine times for 68 yards for the Utes. And Barnes, who grew up on a farm in Milford, Utah and was a plumbing intern in high school, continued to fill the void left by injured Cameron Rising, who is officially out for the year. “They’ve got themselves a Heisman winner,” said coach Kyle Whittingham after the win. “We’ve got a pig farmer.”