The Washington Huskies Football team marched into Reser Stadium looking for an opportunity to “finish” with a victory.
While the game wasn’t fully decided until the end, the Huskies seemed to be in full control with their 19-7 win over the Oregon State Beavers.
On a whole, both teams didn’t produce many scores as both offenses had their struggles moving the ball throughout the game.
In the first quarter, the Huskies would strike first when they marched down the field and settle for a 47-yard field goal by sophomore placekicker Peyton Henry.
At the end of the first quarter the Huskies led the Beavers 3-0, while still trying to settle in the game offensively and find a rhythm.
Defensively, the Huskies were absolutely sensational, suffocating the Beavers offense the entire night and holding them scoreless.
“I think it’s just the preparation that went in during the week. I mean guys prepared hard..guys prepared like this was the last game of the season,” Senior defensive back Myles Bryant told DubLife after the game.
The lone Beavers touchdown came on a 36-yard touchdown interception, when defensive back Jaydon Grant picked off Huskies junior quarterback Jacob Eason.
Every time the Beavers tried to get back into the game offensively, the stout and stingy Huskies defense would shut them down and force a 3-and-out.
For the entire night, the Beavers offense was only able to net 119 total yards and couldn’t penetrate the Huskies swarming and physical defense.
“I think it was a lot of things! Up front, we were really stout versus the run and we got after them a couple times and that makes it easy for us!” Junior defensive back Elijah Molden told DubLife.
In the second quarter, the Huskies would score their first touchdown of the game when junior running back Salvon Ahmed ran for a 6-yard touchdown.
At halftime, the Huskies led the Beavers 10-0 and seemed in control. While things were fine defensively, it was the offense that had its challenges.
All night long, the Huskies passing game was out of sync and couldn’t find it’s groove, which caused the offense to sputter at times.
Part of the issues had to do with Eason not being crisp and accurate with his passes, and also some dropped passes by the receivers.
In the third quarter, the Beavers cut the lead to 13-7, after the touchdown interception and momentum seemed to turn for just a quick second.
The Huskies’ woes with “finishing” games, seemed to set itself up for another interesting finish, but the Huskies would quickly answer.
With 2:34 left in the third quarter, Ahmed would take matters into his own hands, when he ran for an electrifying 60-yard touchdown run.
The theme of the second half for the Huskies was running the football effectively, which was the only thing working for the offense.
“We came into the game wanting to run the ball and we just stuck with that!” Eason told DubLife.
That score would essentially break the back of the Beavers for the rest of the way, as the Huskies held on to the 19-7 lead all the way to the end.
It was a magnificent performance for the Husky defense and one of their best in recent memory, as the Beavers couldn’t score an offensive touchdown.
After the game, Washington head coach Chris Petersen said that they would spend the bye week trying to improve their broken passing game.
“Hopefully we will get as healthy as we’ve been and get some rhythm going back into our pass game,” Petersen said.
Nonetheless, the Huskies found a way to finally “finish” and get that monkey off their back, before getting another week of rest ahead.
“It felt great! Those last two games have been hard..hard on us as a team. We keep pushing but they were so close and we just got to finish, so today we went out there with a mindset to finish the game,” Salvon Ahmed told DubLife after the game.
Ahmed led the Huskies on the night, with 25 carries for 178 yards and 2 TD’s. He was the catalyst that broke the game open in the second half.
With their victory tonight, The Huskies are now officially bowl eligible after recording their sixth win of the season with two games remaining.
Next up for the Huskies (6-4, 3-4) is a road game at Folsom Field in Boulder, Colorado against the Colorado Buffaloes (3-6, 1-5), on Saturday, November 23rd, with the time to be determined.
WASHINGTON VS. OREGON STATE FINAL GAME STATS
You can support DubLife by shopping for the latest Huskies fan gear by clicking on the Fanatics.com “Shop Now” links on the ads seen on our site – When you do, we’ll earn a small commission on each sale. Thanks for your support! Go Dawgs!!
