PASADENA, Calif. – For one last time Jake Browning took the long, slow, painful walk off the field Tuesday night.
With a 28-23 loss to No. 6 Ohio State in the Rose Bowl, the senior quarterback ends his four-year career at Washington with 39 victories. If not for a better start in the first half Browning could have one more, but the 20-point fourth quarter wasn’t enough for the Huskies in the end.
UW managed just three points in the first half, a 38-yard field goal by redshirt freshmen Peyton Henry.
“Just the start. The first half we kind of just came out flat. We really couldn’t get into rhythm,” senior tight end Drew Sample said after the loss. “We had some good drives moving the ball, and then we just shot our self in the foot. I think that second half we played a lot better. We didn’t have as many negative plays. We were moving the ball up and down the field.”
Sample, one of the first players to commit to Chris Petersen after the head coach moved from Boise State to UW in Dec. 2013, finished the game with two receptions for one yard, the first touchdown for the offense against OSU.
The Buckeyes scored three consecutive touchdowns on the arm of junior QB Dwayne Haskins Jr., who completed 25 of 37 attempts for 251 yards against the No. 4 scoring defense, between the second and third quarter.
At halftime, down 21-3, senior safety JoJo McIntosh stood up in front of the team and spoke from the heart. Fellow “Death Row” senior, cornerback Jordan Miller, described the speech.
“Not word for word,” Miller told TheDawgReport.com, adding a smile with a laugh. “But basically he said this team, this 2018 team, this is our last game together. Our last half. So we if don’t leave everything out there. He didn’t like the way the energy was on the sideline.”
McIntosh, who signed UW over his hometown school UCLA in 2014 out of Chaminade (West Hills, California), finished the game with five tackles. The Huskies played without junior safety Taylor Rapp, who was unable to go in the Rose Bowl with a hip injury.
“It was kind of weird the first half the energy wasn’t there,” Miller continued. “We were smiling like we usually do, but kind of down. We came out with a lot of different energy. Even when they came out and scored first we knew we could stop them.”
The speech gave the Huskies life.
Even after, as Miller noted, the Buckeyes widened the margin between the two teams with 8:23 remaining in the third quarter after running back J.K. Dobbins scored a 3-yard TD run, the game still seemed within reach.
Then came the fourth quarter.
UW capped off a 10-play, 66-yard drive with just over 12 minutes remaining with a 2-yard TD pass from senior RB Myles Gaskin to Sample. Almost Tebow-esq, referring to the former Florida quarterback who became famous for his “jump pass” throws down near the goal line, the score affirmed the belief that the Huskies could in fact come back against OSU.
The Seattle-native scored two more times in the fourth, a pair of short-yard runs that cut the deficit to 28-17, and 28-23 with :42 seconds remaining in the game.
After allowing 21 first-half points the Huskies defense shut down Haskins and Co. over the final 30 minutes. Sophomore tight end Hunter Bryant, who caught four passes for 51 yards against the Buckeyes, hauled in a key 24-yard reception that led to the Gaskin-Sample TD.
In the first half Bryant seemed to be missing in action playing only one snap. But for him the game proved why UW was successful this season, and he doesn’t see any reason that won’t be the case in 2019.
“I think that just shows how special this team really is. Like no matter how fogged down we are we always have a chance to win,” Bryant said. “If we don’t make some of the early mistakes we did on offense, it would be completely different. I feel pretty excited coming back next year and seeing what this team is going to be able to do.”
