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Happy Monday Dawg fans, and welcome to today’s Dots.
I walked to Husky Stadium on Saturday remarking that UW needed not just a win, but a Feel Good Win against Illinois. With the late collapse to Michigan and meager 1st-half scoring recently, it seemed Husky fans like me needed to feel good about where this team is, two-thirds of the way through the season. I also remarked that a “two-score win” would make me feel good.
I walked out of Husky Stadium feeling good.
The only thing that got in the way of the good vibes were the Big Ten refs. Honestly, I’ve never heard Boo-ing as loud and as long as I heard on Saturday, and I’ve been going to games since the Don James era. Re-watching the game on TV, I can see where the refs thought the penalties had merit, however slight. But whatever. Ever since that horrible sideline infraction call at Rutgers last year, I don’t expect any love from Big Ten officiating. But there’s also this nugget:
The Huskies scored TDs on 6 of their 8 drives, with one three-and-out, and a kneel-down at game’s end. UW was 6 for 6 in the red zone, special teams issue weren’t given much chance to well up, and the defense noticeably improved after halftime.
Illinois scored just once in the 2nd half, and they needed a drive-extending penalty to do so. Only 2 of the Illini’s 9 3rd-down conversions came in the 2nd half.
Illinois QB Luke Altmyer had thrown only one interception prior to Saturday before the Dawgs picked him off FOUR times. However, the Big Ten Referees’ Math went like this:
4(takeaways) – 2(takeaway-takeaways) = 2(total takeaways)
Use this link to watch the entire game, especially if you want to get mad at the refs all over again for:
- That interference penalty against Tacario Davis (00:54:51)
- A potential P.I. against Illinois that was a no-call (01:36:44)
- The roughing penalty against Ta’ita’i Uiagalelei (01:44:51)
- Jared Tucker, UW Daily: “Washington thumps Illinois 42-25 in Demond Williams Jr.’s get-back performance“
- Some bits from Christian Caple’s “The Day After: 30 thoughts on Washington’s 42-25 win over Illinois“:
- “Illinois pressured [Demond] Williams on only four of his 37 dropbacks, per Pro Football Focus.”
- “the Huskies again did a pretty good job keeping things in front of them. Maybe that’s just how it’s going to go for this defense this season. The Illini had only two rushes longer than 10 yards, and only four pass plays longer than 15.”
- “the Huskies are done playing opponents with a rest advantage. They finished that stretch 3-1 … defeating Maryland, Rutgers and Illinois with those teams coming off idle weeks.”
- Not sure who this account is but I like what they’re selling:
- You can read about Husky Women’s Soccer goalie Mia Hamant’s fight with stage-four cancer here, and visit the GoFundMe page.
Go Dawgs!!