UW Football
Huskies will stay home for the holidays

By Bob Condotta
Seattle Times staff reporter

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That means the Huskies, who finished the season 6-6 overall and 4-4 in Pac-10 play, will stay home for the holidays for the first time since 1994, when UW was on probation. It will be the first time UW hasn't played in a bowl game when not on probation since 1988.

"Obviously we are disappointed, but I knew we would be lucky if we got to a bowl game because of our record," said UW athletic director Barbara Hedges, who had aggressively pursued the bid. "Obviously our season wasn't exactly what we wanted it to be and we have a lot of hard work to do."

After all the other Pac-10 bowl slots were settled Monday, the Silicon bowl was left to choose between the Huskies and Bruins, who had identical overall and conference records.

UCLA, however, beat UW 46-16 in October, and Hedges said she was told by Silicon bowl officials that that result was the deciding factor.

"Basically, it came down to that game," Hedges said.

But there were other factors working against UW as well.

Foremost, picking UCLA gives the bowl a California matchup that might draw more fans, particularly from Fresno State. FSU has struggled to get UCLA on its schedule in the past — the schools have played just six times, with the Bruins winning them all.

FSU coaches and officials were also reportedly leery of playing Washington, because the Bulldogs will open next season in Seattle against the Huskies.

There was also some thought that officials from the WAC, which helps underwrite the bowl, thought it would be better for the conference to possibly get a win against UCLA. The conference already has a win against UW this year, thanks to Nevada.

Still, Silicon officials said they were impressed by the aggressiveness with which the Huskies pursued the bowl. Some posters on a UW fan Web site helped lead a grass-roots campaign to inundate bowl officials with emails saying they would love to attend the game. UW officials also were the first to make contact with Silicon officials and there was some thought that the Huskies might be more eager to play the game since they were coming off a win in their last game; UCLA has lost four in a row.

Bowl officials met for roughly an hour before picking UCLA.

But UW's fate seemed sealed earlier in the day when it was announced that Fresno State would play in the Silicon bowl for the fourth straight year, the result of some fancy work by the WAC to land an additional bowl bid. WAC officials were able to work out a deal to send Boise State to the Forth Worth Bowl to play TCU and send Tulsa to the Humanitarian Bowl, opening up a spot in the Silicon for Fresno. If the WAC had been forced to send Tulsa to the Silicon, UW's odds would have been better.

"Once they got Fresno State, I knew it would be difficult for them not to pick UCLA," Hedges said.

Copyright © 2003 The Seattle Times Company