Errors doom Huskies

SEATTLE – Glass-half-full people will look at Washington’s 36-17 loss to Notre Dame on Saturday in front of 71,473 fans at Husky Stadium and see reason to hope. After all, the Huskies lost 38-3 to the Irish last season and this time stayed with a team ranked No. 16 in the nation.

Everyone else, though, will see an opportunity lost. The Huskies had so many chances to put Notre Dame (3-1) on the run only to fail, that it’s hard to feel anything but disappointment.

Either way, Washington (1-3) enters a brutal October stretch knowing it can compete with a nationally ranked team but lamenting what could have been.

“They are not better than us,” linebacker Scott White said. “Missed opportunities, that pretty much sums up our game. They made some plays, give them credit for that, but anytime we’ve got opportunities against a team like Notre Dame in our backyard early in the ball game, you’ve got to capitalize.”

Washington lost despite passing for 408 yards (its most since Nov. 2, 2002, and seventh-most in history) and gaining 449 yards of total offense. The Huskies were hurt by two fumbles, an interception and a blocked punt, but there was so much more. Notre Dame converted several key third-down plays, the Huskies committed some costly turnovers and could not take advantage of some plays that could have put them in position to win.

“(It was) a football game that came down to what football games always come down to,” Washington coach Tyrone Willingham said. “The ability for one team to make plays and the inability of the other team to make plays. They did a great job of making theirs, and conversely we did not do the same. So we separated ourselves and put ourselves in a hole that we could not dig out of.”

Trouble started from the beginning. Isaiah Stanback led an impressive Washington drive on the opening series, completing 6 of 7 passes for 85 yards. The last one was an 11-yard strike to Craig Chambers at the 1 but the former Jackson High star had the ball stripped and recovered by Irish safety Chinedum Ndukwe. Willingham said he thought Chambers was down but nevertheless, an early scoring chance was lost.

Washington got a break when Notre Dame fumbled a bad snap on a field goal attempt, but again the Huskies made a mistake, allowing Notre Dame’s Chase Anastacio to block a punt. Faced with a third-and-12, Irish quarterback Brady Quinn scrambled for 13 yards, setting up a 25-yard field goal by D.J. Fitzpatrick.

“Notre Dame was a real good team but it wasn’t any different than anyone else we’re going to play,” said safety C.J. Wallace, who led both teams with 17 tackles. “We thought we could beat them and we shot ourselves in the foot.”

Washington answered with a 27-yard Evan Knudson field goal but Notre Dame converted two third-down plays, one on a pass interference by Josh Okoebor, and Darius Walker ran up the middle, cut to the left and scored on a 17-yard run to give the Irish a 9-3 lead with 4:47 left in the first half.

“They were tall,” Okoebor said of Notre Dame’s two 6-foot-5 receivers. “They’re probably going to be one of the tallest receivers we see all year. But that’s no excuse. We still need to be able to step up and play them.”

Washington wasted no time coming back, as Stanback connected with Marlon Wood on a 69-yard pass play down the right sideline. It was Wood’s first catch as a Husky and he might have scored had he not had to slow down just a bit. But two plays later, Stanback scrambled to his left and seemed to have a lane to run into the end zone, but instead threw it, allowing Notre Dame cornerback Ambrose Wooden to pick it off in the end zone. Notre Dame added another field goal just before halftime for a 12-3 lead.

Stanback, who had a career day by completing 17 of 34 for 353 yards, said it was just a bad throw.

“It was an easy throw,” he said. “I had the guy wide-open in the end zone. I second-guessed myself and short-armed it.”

“We should have been leading going into halftime,” said receiver Sonny Shackelford, one of 10 players to catch a pass for the Huskies. “But shoulda, coulda, woulda, it never happened. We had a lot of opportunities to put the ball in the end zone and we hurt ourselves.”

Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis said he was just happy to get out of Seattle with a win.

“I thought it was a typical bend-but-don’t-break performance by our defense,” Weis said. “We gave up a lot of yards in the passing game. You have to give a lot of credit to Washington, but turning the ball over and getting the ball back helped keep the game from slipping away from us.”

A week after dominating an overmatched Idaho team, Washington’s defense played the high-scoring Irish (33 points a game) tough but Quinn made short drops and got rid of the ball quickly, negating any Husky pass rush. In addition, Walker ran for more than 100 yards (128) for the fourth consecutive game as the Irish had 233 rushing yards and 560 total yards. Notre Dame also held the ball for nearly 14 minutes longer than Washington.

“We got some real key stops when we needed to,” UW defensive coordinator Kent Baer said. “We played great in the first half, and for the most part in the third quarter. We stepped up at some crucial times.”

That’s true, but the offense again failed to take advantage.

“We’ve just got to make the plays,” offensive coordinator Tim Lappano said.

For now, though, Washington is just a team that put up numbers but made too many mistakes to make it matter.

“They made some big plays at some points and we just couldn’t get ourselves there,” Willingham said. “For a huge portion of it, our defense kept us right in there. We had a chance to play a heck of a ball game.”