UW finds a miracle while continuing on rebuilding road

The beauty and the beast of sport is its unpredictability. Nothing is scripted. Nothing quite follows the game plan.

Jump shots don't drop. Drives land in the thick rough. Sliders are hung. Tackles are missed. Mistakes are made. Miracles happen.

Part of growing up is learning how to overcome mistakes, survive the inevitable adversity and find a way to win. Washington grew up a little bit more Saturday night. It found a way to win. It found a miracle. The immaculate interception.

Down and apparently out, Washington linebacker Mason Foster intercepted a quirky pass that bounced off the foot of Arizona's Delashaun Dean and returned it 37 yards for the unlikeliest touchdown in a most improbable 36-33 win.

You want adversity, this game had enough to fill a soap opera for a week. The UW had to overcome a 33-21 deficit in the final minutes of a game that felt lost.

Early in the second half of Washington's Pac-10 game against Arizona, with his team trailing 17-14, punter Will Mahan let the snap slide through his hands.

He picked up the muff, dropped the ball again, and awkwardly and illegally kicked it on the bounce, giving Arizona a first-and-goal at the Washington 9.

It was just the worst play of the worst stretch of what looked like a wobbling Washington season.

In the first eight minutes of Saturday's second half, the Huskies gave up a 49-yard kickoff return to Arizona's Travis Cobb. Mahan muffed a punt attempt, Quentin Richardson flubbed a kickoff. Jake Locker was thrown for an 8-yard sack. And Mahan wobbled a 27-yard punt.

In the first 12 minutes of the second half, Arizona had 92 offensive yards. Washington had minus-17.

Mistakes were made by the Huskies. The kind of mistakes that remind us that growing up is painful. Rebuilding isn't easy. Patience hurts.

A 14-10 Washington halftime lead dissolved into 27-14 deficit. And all the optimism leaked out of Husky Stadium like the helium from a pin-pricked birthday balloon.

When we last gathered here, life at Washington was returning to normal, or at least the kind of normal football fans grew accustomed to in the 1990s. It felt as if all of the recent unpleasantness had been purged from the program.

The World According to Sark was all about glorious Saturdays like this upset win over USC. New coach Steve Sarkisian was quickly delivering on his promise of a bounteous future.

Just like that, Washington football was back. Or at least it felt that way on that last Saturday of summer. Maybe it could happen that fast after all.

But then the young Huskies went on the road and lost badly at Stanford and heartbreakingly at Notre Dame.

The Huskies were stung by reality.

Returning home, they were reeling and hurting and facing a must-win game against a very good Arizona team. Lose this game, drop to 2-4 and UW could forget about the postseason.

Their egos bruised, their starting safeties out, the Huskies needed something, someone to get them dreaming big again. They needed something, someone to ignite like gasoline.

On this must-win Saturday, the Huskies needed quarterback Locker more than they've ever needed him. They needed him to be their leader, playmaker, losing streak-stopper and closer.

And it needed a miracle.

Locker can change the rhythm of a game. This miracle can change the rhythm of the season. Trailing 7-0 and with his team looking as if it were suffering a slight Golden Dome hangover, Locker ducked under the blitz of Arizona's sack-hungry linebacker Vuna Tuihalamaka, ran into open spaces, juked safety Robert Golden and turned a third-and-long pass play into a 56-yard TD run.

It was a page ripped cleanly from the Marques Tuiasosopo playbook. It was the longest run of Locker's career.

On Washington's second scoring drive, Locker directed a perfect trifecta of plays. He completed a third-down pass to Chris Polk. He threw to Jermaine Kearse for 22 yards.

And, on first-and-goal, he froze Arizona's ornery defense with a play fake and softly floated a 5-yard touchdown pass to Devin Aguilar, alone in the middle of the end zone.

He threw another touchdown pass to Aguilar, a 39-yarder late in the third quarter, and then threw a 25-yarder to Kavario Middleton that gave the Huskies hope with 2:55 left.

Following Locker's example, Washington kept pulling itself off the canvas.

And a miracle happened on rebuilding road.