The Good, The Bad & The Unknown: Washington State

The Good

Braving the cold - Major appreciation for Washington coming out in as cold of recent game as I can remember and looking lively and they wanted to be there in a game that, on paper, did not mean too much. I know that I wouldn't want to be down there playing in ridiculously cold temperatures and it would have been easy for the Huskies to try and mail in a performance or come out slow and they did just the opposite.

Dwayne Washington - Washington came back from injury to become the Huskies' most-explosive back since Louis Rankin. His ability to break big runs got the Husky offense going and then also put a comfortable gap between the Cougars and the Huskies on top of just being really fun to watch. His yards per-carry has become ridiculous.

Third and fourth down defense - The Huskies gave up some yards to the Cougars, but they were exceptional in getting the Cougars off of the field when they needed to. They were 3-15 on third and fourth down with some of those conversions coming in garbage time I believe.

Pass defense - As I said, they gave up some yards, but that is very hard not to do against the Cougars and a lot of it came in garbage time. Otherwise, the young Husky secondary took on the prolific Cougar receiver group and did an excellent job of breaking up key passes. Also, they did a great job of grabbing two interceptions against a program that the Huskies sometimes seem to really struggle at picking off (cue horrible Alex Brink era flashbacks).

Pass rush - The pass defense got a lot of help from a red-hot pass rush that I will remember as the biggest strength for Washington in 2014. Luke Falk was regularly surrounded by pressure and the deadly Husky front made it very difficult on him from the get go.

Danny Shelton & Andrew Hudson - Hudson simply continued his feel-good season and story with five tackles and 1.5 sacks and Shelton remained simply dominant and damn fun to watch. It is going to be much less fun to watch the Husky defense in 2015 without Shelton.

Kasen Williams - Pretty simple, but really nice to see Kasen get a touchdown catch in his final regular season game as a Husky.

Field position - It was a rare game where it seemed like the Huskies owned field position from the first snap and then controlled it the rest of the way. Another great game by Korey Durkee.

Dominating the "rest of the North" - The Huskies may have lost a frustrating game to Stanford and gotten raced by Oregon yet again, but they sure did dominate the Pac-12 North's also-rans. The Huskies outscored Cal, Oregon State and Washington State 99-33 with two of those games being on the road.

The Bad

Cold/timing - I know you cannot control the weather and that getting games on TV is the ultimate priority, but pushing this game to 7:30 and the temperatures that resulted were simply crazy. Though I guess it would not have been much warmer earlier in the day.

End of the regular season - Just when the season seemed to be getting fun and the Huskies seemed to start clicking, it is over and now we all have left is a month or so of quiet and one bowl game.

The Unknown

Bowl game? Where will the Huskies end up and where should fans want them to end up? Right now I am thinking the best case scenario is probably the Cactus Bowl and maybe the Las Vegas Bowl.

Corner turned? The Huskies have truly looked like a different team the past three weeks, even considering the final two games were against struggling competition. Have they put it together under Chris Petersen and are now ready to fulfill their potential on a regular basis?

Expectations? Now that the regular season is officially over, I would say that the Huskies slightly came up short to expectations and that will probably stand even if they win the lesser bowl game they are likely headed to. With the season in the rear view mirror, the staff much more familiar and the picture of returning talent pretty much clear... what are expectations for 2015? And beyond?