Washington Huskies Links: Do-or-Die in Omaha

The Seattle Times — Washington to face Oregon State in loser-out game Monday at College World Series

After falling Saturday to Mississippi State in a 1-0 shutout, the Dawgs are already in win-or-go-home-mode. They take on the Beavers today in an 11 a.m. game airing on ESPN; in the regular season, the Huskies beat Oregon State once out of three contests.

The Seattle Times — Huskies didn’t succumb to nerves at College World Series, they succumbed to a lack of key hit

In examining Washington’s loss Saturday to the Bulldogs, Larry Stone says that the Dawgs weren’t overwhelmed by the moment or the stage. Rather, he says, they were done in by a simple inability to make good contact when the moment demanded it:

But what the Huskies lacked, most glaringly in the third inning, was a big hit. They loaded the bases with one out, and catcher Nick Kahle, their No. 3 hitter, made solid contact. But his grounder went right at the shortstop, who turned an inning-ending double play.

“I think if we could have got the lid off there we might have been able to get a couple more, because it was early enough I don’t think they were interested in going to the bullpen at that time,’’ Meggs said. “That’s a huge moment for them. Nick gets a good pitch to hit, and he’s the guy we want up there in that situation. And he just hooked it.”

The Athletic — State of the Program: USC football plans to translate potential into results

Chantel Jennings takes a deep dive into the 2018 USC Trojans football team, whom many handicappers predict at this point will face the Huskies in this year’s Pac-12 championship game. Her key takeaway:

It’s hard to ignore USC’s potential, thanks to the stellar recruiting efforts of Helton and his staff. Unfortunately for USC, that has too often been the case — tons of preseason hype and potential, but results that don’t quite measure up. The Trojans will be working in a new quarterback this season (quite possibly a true freshman) and players in the defensive front seven will need to step up, but the opportunities are there, especially in a wide-open Pac-12 South in the first year for Kelly at UCLA, Sumlin at Arizona and Edwards at Arizona State.

Sports Illustrated — Revisiting SI’s 2017 Ranking of the Top 100 College Football Players: Who Did We Get Wrong?

Of the 12 players SI says it most egregiously misevaluated, two were members of the Washington Huskies: Azeem Victor, at No. 20, wound up being a non-factor in his senior season before he was ignominiously booted from the team following his DUI arrest in November, and Dante Pettis, at No. 70, “may have been the most valuable special teams player in the country.” This is also a great excuse to show one of my favorite plays of the Chris Petersen era.

SB Nation — 16 hours later, Mike Leach deleted his Barack Obama conspiracy theory video tweet

I’m just going to let the headline speak for itself. Good luck with this one, Cougs.