What Chris Petersen is building up in Seattle still isn’t getting enough attention nationally. In the past two seasons, Washington has made the College Football Playoff and then after retooling their entire secondary last year, still made a New Year’s Six game. While the results in both games were less than desirable, there is no doubt that Petersen has built a monster up north that is primed to compete for a Pac 12 Title every single year.
Prestige Rating (If NCAA Football Still Existed): 5 Stars
Last Year’s Record: 10-3 (7-2)
Projected Returning Starters
Offense: 8
QB Jake Browning, RB Myles Gaskin, WR Chico McClatcher, TE Drew Sample, C Nick Harris, G Luke Wattenberg, T Kaleb McGary, T Trey Adams
The Huskies may be hurting a little bit at receiver, but outside of that, what more can you ask for when bringing back your third year starter at QB, your RB, and four out of five linemen? The unit should be very effective and efficient.
Defense: 9
DL Ryan Bowman, NT Greg Gaines, LB Tevis Bartlett, LB Ben Burr-Kirven, NB Myles Bryant, CB Byron Murphy, CB Jordan Miller, S Jojo McIntosh, S Taylor Rapp
There are some dudes back here. With Vita Vea and Keishawn Bierria as the only two players missing, the defense returns just about everyone else. The defense was already very good last year and that will continue to be the case.
Special Teams
P Joel Whitford, KR Salvon Ahmed
Key Losses: WR Dante Pettis and DT Vita Vea
As I mentioned earlier, receiver will be a week spot on this roster this season. A large part of that is the electric Dante Pettis moving on to the NFL. He was huge with 761 yards and 7 TDs, in addition to his four punt return touchdowns last year.
On the other side of the ball, Vita Vea was maybe the best defensive lineman in the country in 2017. The numbers weren’t eye-popping with only 44 tackles and 3.5 sacks, Vea blocked up the middle of the line en route to becoming the 12th overall pick in April.
Five Year Recruiting Rank (Bill Connelly): 24
Alcohol Prediction for Fans by Season’s End: Founder’s Coffee Stout
The Tyrell Smoochie-Wallace All Name Team: Chico McClatcher
There were quite a few choices here as I think Jojo McIntosh is just a bad ass name and Ben Burr-Kirven has a nice ring to it as well.
Outlook
There is a very strong chance that we see Washington playing in January. What game they play in will be decided heavily based on their week one game against Auburn. Win this game and you have a quality win for the resume to help for a playoff push. With a loss in this game, Washington has to go undefeated the rest of the season to have a chance and the narrative surrounding the weak Pac 12 would continue. Oregon and Stanford being in the same division won’t make things easy for the Huskies, but I think that Washington will end up going 11-1 with a loss in conference and make the College Football Playoff as the Pac 12 Champion.