Reflecting on a comment made by Roaddawg

DerekJohnson

He mentioned how he wasn't upset over a loss in a meaningless game against a mediocre Arizona team. First off, I'm not saying he's wrong to feel that way.

But I am old enough to see how the culture around this program has changed so dramatically. There was a time when every single loss, regardless to whom, was searingly painful and took a couple days to recover from. Every game mattered.

After many years of Babs, Gilby, Emmert, Ty, Todd Turner, Sark, Nick Holt, Woodward, etc., we now have fans who view a loss to Arizona as a meaningless throwaway game, much like how we view the Husky basketball team losing a December game to New Mexico.

HeretoBeatmyChest

People seem pretty upset about the game to me. RoadDawg is putting it in perspective because we don't have anything huge to play for. It's not like ASU's loss.

On the contrary to what you say, expectations are at least back to normal now or close. People are not going to be happy until we are competing for championships regularly. Even people on doogman are upset.

Fire_Marshall_Bill

That one hurt quite a bit. Between that and the Seahawk fuck up, and other factors, the weekend and this morning sucked. That was easily the most painful loss of the post Ty era. It's not close IMO. It's value is good in a perverted way in that it means people care and actually carry high expectations.

DerekJohnson

HeretoBeatmyChest said:

People seem pretty upset about the game to me. RoadDawg is putting it in perspective because we don't have anything huge to play for. It's not like ASU's loss.

On the contrary to what you say, expectations are at least back to normal now or close. People are not going to be happy until we are competing for championships regularly. Even people on doogman are upset.

Well, my comment above is both spot on but also faulty in light of how many are upset by the manner we lost to Arizona. So how many people were deeply upset by the loss to UCLA? To Oregon? To Stanford? Sure, people weren't happy about those, but it doesn't even come close to how painful the losses used to be.

BennyBeaver

DJ- sounds like you need to stop living in the past.

RoadDawg55

I hope we get back to the point where every loss matters and hurts. Losses still bother me, but not as much late in the season after already losing 4 games. I remember being really pissed about losing to Oregon in 2000 and Oregon State and Texas in 2001. The most pissed I got during the Sark years was last year against Stanford.

Just a guess, but I think people were more pissed than usual about this loss because of the fashion in which we lost. I also think it was because we played relatively well and still found a way to lose. I think it was also a accumulation of the whole season to this point.

jecornel

I remember that three game losing streak in 97...Oregon, UCLA and WSU thinking life was over....I remember walking down the ramp with my dad after the Oregon loss in utter shock.... watching leaf win in husky stadium and the giant wsu flag being waved in the stadium afterward is seared into my memory banks....even if I end up suffering from alzheimers I won't forget it.

Or in 95 leading USC 21-0 in the fourth and keyshawn catching 3 TDs to end in a tie made me ill.... and the Oregon loss at home losing by 2 the week after....

I literally couldnt believe what I was witnessing those years. Pure misery.

jecornel

I'm sorry, I believe it was a leaf flag! I guess I will forget it if I lose my brain

Dardanus

I was expecting to get steamrolled and we didn't, which is partly why I'm not still upset. However, I want to jump off the Aurora bridge because I expected UW to get steamrolled by Arizona, which speaks to the state of the program, like Kaiser DJ said.

Tequilla

It's probably a little of all of it rolled together ...

The way we lost ...

The expectations going into the season ...

Tired of losing ...

Tired of watching Oregon be good while we sit back pissing in the wind ...

The losses of the past hurt in a lot of ways because in many of those instances we lost far more than the game ...

This season has been trying ... We've had a lot of steps backwards canceling out many of the steps we've taken forward ...

I'm a firm believer that one of the most difficult skills to learn in sports is how to win. A game like Saturday tells me that we still have a way to go in this program in terms of making winning plays.

In the grand scheme of things, the negatives in losing Saturday are only magnified IF we fail to win either of our last two games.

There's a lot of soul searching that everybody in this program needs to have with themselves this offseason. The difference right now between 2-5 and 5-2 are very small.

CFetters_Nacho_Lover

jecornel said:

I remember that three game losing streak in 97...Oregon, UCLA and WSU thinking life was over....I remember walking down the ramp with my dad after the Oregon loss in utter shock.... watching leaf win in husky stadium and the giant wsu flag being waved in the stadium afterward is seared into my memory banks....even if I end up suffering from alzheimers I won't forget it.

Or in 95 leading USC 21-0 in the fourth and keyshawn catching 3 TDs to end in a tie made me ill.... and the Oregon loss at home losing by 2 the week after....

I literally couldnt believe what I was witnessing those years. Pure misery.

AlzheimerDawg is available. I suggest getting on that now before you forget.

Swaye

There is a middle ground here. I was fucking pissed, because we had a ranked team beat on the road, and fucked it away. And, I am a product of the 90's Dawgs where I expected to win, all the time. However, RD makes a great point, and one that resonated with me even on Saturday night...this was our 5th fucking loss. TSIFO anyway, so in the grand scheme of things, it didn't really matter that much. All it did was move us from a 6th tier shitty bowel to a 7th tier shitty bowel, or whatever.

Doogles

I take Husky football way too seriously, but saturdays loss to zona is up there as one of the most painful i've experienced.

Maybe i'm getting older and gaining a little perspective, but in the past with a loss i would be so depressed about it i literally could not face the boards, the papers, the game shows, etc. I couldn't look at the block W tattooed with defeat next to another logo.

Avoidance until the next week was my only hope. It really fucking affects me when this team loses.

I was always proud that UW was one of the few Pac schools that could say they had a true SEC type passion surrounding it. It's more than football, it's an identity, a life investment. When that source of pride takes a hit, it really hurts.

I know i'm still here, but as DJ is alluding, for a significant portion it's not the same. And it's sad.

IrishDawg22

It is funny that you pick up on RD's comment, but miss a scary theme going around the board. Several posters a pointing out the "improvement" they saw on Saturday vs. the Cats. To me that is an even more disturbing thought process.

13 penalties for 111 yards

3 turnovers

Multiple game management decisions

No matter where you think the blame lies, that was a very sloppy game against a VERY AVERAGE Arizona team.

To me it was a meaningless game in terms of TSWAO after that fake punt vs. the Furd.

jecornel

IrishDawg22 said:

It is funny that you pick up on RD's comment, but miss a scary theme going around the board. Several posters a pointing out the "improvement" they saw on Saturday vs. the Cats. To me that is an even more disturbing thought process.

13 penalties for 111 yards

3 turnovers

Multiple game management decisions

No matter where you think the blame lies, that was a very sloppy game against a VERY AVERAGE Arizona team.

To me it was a meaningless game in terms of TSWAO after that fake punt vs. the Furd.

If you didn't see improvement, you didn't watch the game.

CuntWaffle

The season has been over for a while. A win or loss didn't matter as it wouldn't impact shit. Some people say recruiting but I think Pete is good at selling the long term vision of the program and not just "hey dude come play for us and I will give you the ball a lot and make you a star."

Not calling the timeout is still mind boggling but the rest of the game the team did show improvement and it was their best game of the season imo.

I still think year 3 is going to be the year to really judge Petersen as I think the team will take a step back next year with the defensive studs gone and not a lot of improvement in offense. It is going to be a bloodbath around here next year.

Tequilla

Some of the penalties were legit ... Others were downright comical.

In many ways Saturday was the best game we played all year ... In many ways the worst

DerekJohnson

I have an open mind toward next year. One would have thought that our freshmen DBs would have been aerially raped this year (especially after the Eastern game) but that hasn't been the case. That's no accident. If that kind of improvement can show itself in other areas of the team, who is to say what the limits are for next year's Dawgs?

jecornel

DerekJohnson said:

I have an open mind toward next year. One would have thought that our freshmen DBs would have been aerially raped this year (especially after the Eastern game) but that hasn't been the case. That's no accident. If that kind of improvement can show itself in other areas of the team, who is to say what the limits are for next year's Dawgs?

Derek, I think you will enjoy the latest podcast. We dig into this some and I think we did a solid plug for HH and DFI.

DerekJohnson

jecornel said:

DerekJohnson said:

I have an open mind toward next year. One would have thought that our freshmen DBs would have been aerially raped this year (especially after the Eastern game) but that hasn't been the case. That's no accident. If that kind of improvement can show itself in other areas of the team, who is to say what the limits are for next year's Dawgs?

Derek, I think you will enjoy the latest podcast. We dig into this some and I think we did a solid plug for HH and DFI.

I will be listening this afternoon.

DeepSeaZ

Losing, especially in such a fashion, was a huge deal to me. Losses like that show me we are not getting better. We still have player doing stupid things on the field. I'm not seeing the leadership of our coaching staff and their ability to teach kids to do things the right way making a difference. I went to UW from '92 to '96. I've been a season ticket holder since '03. The difference in the program during those two time periods can no longer be measured and I seriously question our ability to get back to where we once were. Fuck I really hate our program.