Huskies trump Trojans – again
Different stadium, different season.
Same kicker, same story.
Erik Folk hit a 32-yard field goal as time expired to lift Washington to a 32-31 victory over No. 18 USC on Saturday at the Coliseum.
Second coming - Washington junior wide receiver Jermaine Kearse side steps redshirt sophomore cornerback Brian Baucham after making a catch. The Trojans allowed 536 yards to the Huskies, who converted a late field goal to win the game. - Jesse Bowman | Daily Trojan
The outcome was almost identical to a season ago when Folk hit a 22-yard field goal with three seconds left to give the Huskies the upset over then-No. 3 USC. The Washington win might not have been as shocking as it was a year ago, but it was just as debilitating for the Trojans (4-1).
“It’s very painful,” junior defensive tackle Jurrell Casey said. “It’s hard to explain how painful it is right now.”
USC had two opportunities to score fourth-quarter touchdowns but came up short both times.
“When you have the ball and you have a chance to finish, you can’t go and kick field goals,” USC coach Lane Kiffin said.
Down 29-28, sophomore quarterback Matt Barkley missed wide-open senior wide receiver David Ausberry in the endzone, the ball barely touching Ausberry’s outstretched fingertips. The Trojans settled for a 27-yard field goal by senior kicker Joe Houston and took the lead.
After stopping the Huskies on their next drive, the Trojans moved the ball inside the Washington 25-yard line. Barkley again missed an open receiver, this time senior tight end Jordan Cameron on a third down, so USC had to settle for another field goal attempt.
Only this time, Houston’s 40-yard attempt hit the right field goal post. Houston is two-of-six on field goal tries this year and has not made a kick longer than 34 yards.
“It felt good, that’s for sure. The second you look up it started tailing a little bit. Next thing you know it hits the upright,” Houston said.
When asked if the kicker position would be reopened for competition, Kiffin said, “Definitely.”
After Houston’s miss, Washington took over with 2:34 left on the clock and quarterback Jake Locker marched the Huskies down the field to set up Folk’s winning kick. Locker connected on fourth-and-11 to D’Andre Goodwin to keep the Huskies alive. A few rushes by running back Chris Polk and Washington was in position to make the game-winning kick — and Folk converted.
Locker was again the driving force behind the Huskies’ upset. He amassed 426 total yards — 310 passing and 110 rushing — which accounted for nearly 80 percent of his team’s offense.
“I have 10 other guys around me that makes it a lot easier,” Locker said. “I’m proud of how we played.”
With Washington in range, Kiffin chose not to use any of his three timeouts to try to preserve time for a potential USC response. Kiffin said he was getting ready to use the timeouts but Washington was moving the ball too easily.
“We weren’t gonna stop them,” Kiffin said. “We were dead.”
Instead, Kiffin used two timeouts to try to ice Folk, but to no avail.
“I was just thinking about making it — I wasn’t thinking about the situation at all or what happened last year,” Folk said.
The game was a back-and-forth offensive affair with eight lead changes. Washington gained 536 total yards and USC was not far behind with 484.
Barkley said he was too worried about not throwing interceptions on those key third-down plays.
“I should have made those passes,” he said. “I was more focused on not turning the ball over.”
Barkley finished 14 for 20 for 186 yards without a touchdown or an interception.
USC got on the board first when senior tailback Allen Bradford took a handoff and ran 37 yards untouched for a score. Washington responded with 17 unanswered points.
The Huskies came a yard away from scoring another first half touchdown, but senior cornerback Shareece Wright knocked the ball out of Locker’s arm before he crossed the goal line. The ball went out of bounds and into the end zone for a touchback.
Overshadowed in the disappointment over the loss was the performance by Bradford, who rushed for a career high 223 yards and two touchdowns on 21 carries. After a third-quarter fumble by starting redshirt junior tailback Marc Tyler, Bradford got the bulk of the carries and made the most of it.
But Washington slowed Bradford down, making the Trojans throw on two important third downs. The Trojans will now try to shift focus to their big game next week at Stanford, but Kiffin hopes they will take a lesson from this game.
“The hope is that our players learn from this,” Kiffin said. “That we have to finish people off.”
With all due respect to Matt Barkley’ s comments after the game, 31 points was enough for 16 of the 20 Top 25 teams that played on Saturday to win their contests. Nor can anyone legitimately blame USC’s loss on Joe Houston, who was on the field less than 60 seconds during the entire contest. No, the way I see it, we lost to a towering foe that brings its own referees to the field of play – the NCAA. For it was the NCAA that shrewdly added an unannounced fourth year to USC’s scholarship penalty by timing last spring’s announcement with the close of the recruiting season and then handing Cardinal and Gold players a Get Out of Jail Free card. And it was the NCAA that forced Coach Kiffen to suspend tackling in practice to protect a depth chart that Weight Watchers would be proud of. Now, with every manager even remotely associated with past problems gone and no one left to legitimately punish, we’ll have to wait to see how much it means when the NCAA’s member schools enthusiastically embrace its ideals.