Monday Dots: Dawg D Turnaround Seals Win Over Utah

Happy Monday Dawg fans, and welcome to today’s Dots.

Sitting in the stands on Saturday, watching Utah’s seemingly juggernaut offense rack up 28 points and 306 yards of offense in the first half, I began to think that this Husky team’s defensive flaws, missed tackles, too-many penalties, and assorted squandered opportunities had finally caught up with us — that this time there would be no happy ending. But after an apparent halftime reset, the only Utah drive that did anything was ultimately killed by Alphonzo Tuputala’s interception. And even Tuputala’s unconcsionable ball-drop from well outside the end zone — which former Husky Greg Lewis called “the most boneheaded play in the history of Husky football” — couldn’t derail the huge defensive turnaround that saw the Huskies put the sword to Utah one last time in conference play.

• Christian Caple: “Caple’s Takeaways” and “The Day After: Kalen DeBoer, November and final thoughts from Washington-Utah”
• Ethan Kilbreath, UW Daily: “‘Tale of Two Halves’: Huskies tighten on defense, improve to 10-0 for first time since ‘91”
• Dawgman Radio: Dissecting a Game of Two Halves as UW Beats Utah 35-28
• Dan Raley: “McMillan Makes Appearance, But UW Receiving Corps Remains Fragile”
• This is the play that absolutely needed to happen when Utah started from the 1-yd line. My first instinct is to ask Tuli where he’s been saving this, but I’m glad he picked the right time to unleash it:

• Shoutout to sophomore Grady Gross for making 38- and 41-yard FGs in a wild, swirling windstorm, and his kickoffs regularly go into the end-zone. Present me is pleased.
• Should be noted this is the second week in a row where the Husky offense took the ball in the 4th qtr, protecting a one-score lead, and put together a long, clock-eating drive. Saturday the Huskies ultimately had a FG blocked, but the Utes had to burn 2 timeouts and got the ball back on their own 15 with 1:38 left in the game. Also, Penix and the receiving core just keep doing their thing:

• If those “game-in-60” vids are too long for you, this one has all the scoring plays, and they left the pick-6* in minus the drop! ha!
  *not really a pick-6

• From the radio broadcast Saturday: “Washington is the most-penalized team in college football.” Now, “one of the most-penalized teams” is more accurate, but regardless I think the feel-good stories surrounding this season are taking the sting out of this problem. This needs fixing.
• Mike Vorel: “It’s time for UW to lock up coach Kalen DeBoer for the long haul”

• In basketball news:

Go Dawgs!!