Huskies Game Awards: Arizona State Edition

Well, that was pretty terrible. The Huskies were dominated in the desert by Arizona State, losing 13-7, as I’m sure you know. Saturday was a crazy day in college football. #2 Clemson was knocked off at Syracuse and #10 Auburn was knocked off by LSU.

Our lovely home state produced the two most shocking upsets of the week. #8 Washington State was obliterated by Cal 37-3 on Friday, and well, we all saw what happened in the desert.

I’m tempted to write 400 words, or 4,000, venting and ranting about the massive egg the Huskies laid this weekend, but that’s not the point of this article. This has been an easy article to write all season, but uh, that’s not the case this week.

Let’s look for the silver linings, shall we?

Offensive player of the week: Jake Browning

Jake Browning did not have a particularly good performance against the Sun Devils. He finished just 17/30 for 139 yards, and with a QBR of 30.9. And yet, he seems like the obvious choice for offensive MVP this week. That should tell you all you need to know about how the offense performed. Browning was sacked five times and looked incredibly hesitant to pull the trigger on most passing downs. Still, he gets the nod here since he accounted for the Huskies only score with a quarter back sneak (which he set up with a nice scramble on the prior play) and because there aren’t any other options to really choose from.

Defensive Player of the Week: Myles Bryant

Myles Bryant made his presence felt again Saturday, as he totaled a team high 11 tackles, including 9 solo tackles, and also added a tackle for loss. He seems incredibly comfortable in the nickle corner position, and is a technician when it comes to chopping down running backs/ wide receivers at or close to the line of scrimmage. It was another impressive performance for the sophomore defensive back.

The honorable mention here is a tie between Taylor Rapp and Jordan Miller. Rapp finished the game with 6 tackles, and a sack, in which he did his best impression of a heat seeking missile. Miller for his part finished with 9 tackles, 8 of which were solo. He had another very solid performance in pass coverage.

Unfortunately, Saturday was likely Miller’s last game of the season, as he seemed to suffer a season-ending leg injury on the final meaningful snap of the game. It was an awful, awful finish to an already terrible game. On a similarly depressing note, Trey Adams suffered a knee injury early in the first quarter, and did not return to the game.

We should know about the status of both players later this week, and it seems likely that both injuries are season ending. Regardless, my thoughts and prayers go out to both players and their families.