In its history of key road wins, Husky football just added another big one

Mulling the important Washington football victories over the past 25 years, it surprised me that most came on the road.

The ones I think of are the wins at Michigan and at Washington State in the Orange Bowl season of 1984.

Then the victory at Nebraska in the national-championship year of 1991, the win at Miami to break the Hurricanes' home-game winning steak in 1994, and the rousing rally at Stanford, in the rain and gloom of Curtis Williams' injury, in the Rose Bowl season of 2000.

Couldn't forget, of course, the 31-0 victory over USC at Husky Stadium early in the 1990 season, but somehow that one gets lost in the frustration and futility of the late-season loss to UCLA, also in Husky Stadium, that cost the Huskies a chance at a national title.

I settled into the college football extravaganza last Saturday with higher hopes for the games on television that sandwiched the Apple Cup, than the Apple Cup itself.

Ohio State-Michigan and California-USC, the former for its magnitude, the latter for its possibilities, especially that Cal could return to the Rose Bowl for the first time since my senior year in high school and I would honor a pledge made to my Berkeley roommates and be there.

The truth was that the best game was the one played by the Huskies, in both style and suspense. For both its improbable outcome and its effect on a program. And that it was on the road.

Maybe, in time, we'll really understand just how big that win was, perhaps taking its place with Washington's unlikely 28-27 victory over the Cougars in 1975, giving Don James a winning record in his first season.

It bought James time and favor, which was exactly what he needed.

I sat in Section 20 at Husky Stadium for the loss to Stanford two weeks ago. It's a section of older folks, who've known in each of the past five decades a time when the Huskies at least went to the Rose Bowl.

I sensed from them hopelessness, if not pity. They collectively wondered if the Huskies would ever score.

They faced the stark reality that if the quarterback couldn't do it — something Isaiah Stanback had done before his injury — then the Huskies couldn't do it. They couldn't block, they couldn't run, they couldn't catch.

The blame seemed equally shared among the past three coaches, Tyrone Willingham, Keith Gilbertson and Rick Neuheisel. There was an alarming void of talent.

To even think that a week later that void would be filled by long runs and passes to beat the Cougars was unthinkable.

Like James in 1975, Willingham bought himself time — and favor — by beating the Cougars. Not from the administration that hand-picked him, but from the faithful. And the state's high-school coaches and players.

Washington doesn't need another coach. It's already had too many. It doesn't need another search or another scandal.

If the Huskies had played poorly in Pullman, the vestige of Willingham's second season would have been not only of the eight games he lost, but the players he asked not to return for a fifth year.

There was an irony that Willingham, who champions the cause of players and whose ethics have never been questioned, allowed himself to become the coach who would dump a player just to gain a scholarship.

Irony, too, that Willingham drew the criticism upon himself and his program, when in an attempt to be decent, he informed the players that they were not coming back so they could enjoy the normal senior activities. He could have quietly purged them in the spring.

Those players had issues with a coach who wanted to change attitudes, who demanded discipline. They weren't cut because they weren't good enough. They got the four years he promised them.

I was, frankly, impressed how badly they wanted to return.

Speaking of changing attitudes, Tim Cowan, the former quarterback under James, said he liked what Willingham was doing. He pointed to the overtime loss at California when the Washington defenders chased down the Cal defensive back who had intercepted Carl Bonnell's pass even though it didn't matter.

"Those kids cared," said Cowan. "It wasn't something I saw two years earlier at Berkeley."

Willingham is incredibly resilient. So now is his team. Still, he needs more and better players.

He had one good recruiting year at Notre Dame — he got quarterback Brady Quinn — but his last two were judged to be mediocre, one of the reasons he was fired. Nonetheless, he did recruit the bulk of the team that played USC on Saturday in a showdown of top-10 teams.

In college coaching, Willingham is the steak, rather than the sizzle. He doesn't make noise, but he does care for and graduates kids. He demands accountability, and toughness.

Can he recruit well enough to win at Washington, which should be the perfect place for him, where football is more important than it was at Stanford but not as important as it is at Notre Dame?

At least, because of the victory over WSU, there is the time and the temperament to find out.

Blaine Newnham can be reached by e-mailing at sports@seattletimes.com