Rewatching Washingtons 2011 Alamo Bowl loss: Were setting defense back 150 years ·

17 Jun 2024, 00:00

What do you remember most from the 2011 Alamo Bowl?

Baylor’s 777 yards of total offense, the most Washington has ever allowed in a game?

Keith Price’s career day, highlighted by four touchdown passes and three touchdown runs?

Chris Spielman spending the entire broadcast wishing somebody, anybody would make a tackle?

“It was a crazy offensive game,” Price recalled recently, “and not a lot of defense being played.”

If you watched it, you can’t possibly forget Baylor’s 67-56 victory over Washington that night in San Antonio, the Huskies’ only ever appearance in the Alamo Bowl. They’re back this season, slated to face Texas on Dec. 29. And while it’s fair to expect a shootout, considering each team’s offensive capabilities, it is unlikely the Huskies and Longhorns will combine for what UW and Baylor produced 11 years ago. Their 123 combined points set a bowl-game record for regulation, and so did their 1,397 combined yards of total offense.

As luck would have it, the full game is available on YouTube. The following is a running diary of my rewatch, with some comments from Price and Baylor running back Terrance Ganaway — the game MVP — mixed in. My observations are time-stamped so you can follow along.

0:00:00 — Obviously, ESPN leans heavily into the Robert Griffin III angle, opening the broadcast with a montage of Griffin highlights and a shot of him entering the stadium.

“You’re going to see tonight why Robert Griffin III won the Heisman Trophy,” Spielman says a couple minutes later.

In between, play-by-play man Dave Pasch does note: “Washington can score, too.” Indeed, Price, then a third-year sophomore, already had set the Huskies’ single-season record for touchdown passes, and tailback Chris Polk was a first-team All-Pac-12 selection. The spotlight was on Griffin, but there was reason for Washington to think it could score a bunch, too.

The broadcast also discusses how, uh, not great these teams are at defense. Baylor finished the year ranked 107th nationally in yards per play allowed, with Washington right behind at 108th. The Huskies also finished 108th in scoring defense, with Baylor 113th.

So Spielman had reason to muse: “This is something to watch. This truly could go to 1,000 total yards and over 100 points in this game. If that happens, me being a defensive guy, just keep the camera on me after the game. I might take a nosedive off the top of the Alamodome.”

0:05:45 — If you watched only the opening kickoff and Baylor’s first offensive play, you might assume Cort Dennison was about to play the game of his life. He makes a big hit on the kickoff at Baylor’s 15-yard line, then breaks through for a TFL on a tricky little reverse toss. This would have been a good place for defensive coordinator Nick Holt to stop the film.

Indeed, on the next play, Griffin rolls right before firing for a 28-yard gain. “A flick of the wrist,” Pasch says. Spielman then compares him to Michael Vick. A few moments later, Pasch compares him to Cam Newton.

0:09:40 — Turns out Sean McDonough doesn’t own the rights to “trouble with the snap.” That’s precisely what Pasch says as Baylor’s center fires an unexpected snap off Griffin’s chest. He chases down the ball, picks it up and throws a first-down completion to star receiver Kendall Wright. It’s negated by an ineligible receiver downfield penalty, called by referee Ron Cherry, he of “giving him the business” fame. Still a heck of a play by Griffin.

0:11:00 — Ahead of its time, Baylor shows no hesitation in going for it on fourth-and-1 inside UW’s 15-yard line and converts easily on a short run by Ganaway. Spielman notes that the Huskies weren’t even lined up. Indeed, they were not, and were apparently trying to substitute. The camera shows a quick shot of Holt on the sideline. Not great.

Baylor’s next play is an 11-yard touchdown pass from Griffin to Wright, who shakes cornerback Quinton Richardson to find the end zone. Thirteen plays, 85 yards in 3 minutes, 46 seconds. The Bears would not have to work nearly as hard for most of their remaining scores.

They mostly did it by running the ball, finishing with 482 yards rushing, second-most ever by a UW opponent. Ganaway went for 200, and two other rushers cracked the 100-yard mark. Griffin may have won the Heisman, but there was far more to Baylor’s offense than just the quarterback.

“We went in there with a much more balanced approach,” Ganaway recalled last week. “Obviously, we wanted to highlight and showcase Robert, but it was a team riddled with a ton of talent.”

0:13:15 — We are about to be reminded, however, how talented this Washington offense was. Your first indicator: Bishop Sankey, who eventually set the school’s single-season rushing record in 2013, is a true freshman on this team and is deep for Baylor’s kickoff. He didn’t have a single carry.

The broadcast cycles through Washington’s impact players: Price, Polk and true freshman tight end Austin Seferian-Jenkins. And that doesn’t even mention receivers Jermaine Kearse, Devin Aguilar and Kasen Williams, a true freshman.

“We were super confident, man,” Price, now a graduate assistant at Boise State, said earlier this month. “We felt like we were one of the best offenses in the country. I think we kind of proved that. Obviously, we weren’t getting a whole bunch of publicity nationwide, but I think that game kind of put that offense on the map a little bit.”

0:14:00 — Price hits a 42-yard gain to Aguilar on the first play. Have a feeling it might be that kind of game.

0:15:14 — Polk was such a physical runner. Sarkisian always had a 1,000-yard back at Washington, and Polk might be one of the most underrated tailbacks the Huskies have ever had. Imagine the publicity he would have received playing for better teams.

0:18:35 — Here we see what Price could do when healthy. He takes a shotgun snap on third-and-3 from Baylor’s 5-yard line, waits long enough for a hole to develop, then takes the QB draw up the gut untouched for a score. Price hurt both of his knees this season, his first as a starter, so his mobility had been limited. Given a month to heal up, though, he played this game with no limitations.

“That was the best that I felt all year,” Price said. “I think I hurt my knee the first game of the season, and then I hurt my other knee, like, the second or third game of the season. It was tough. But (the Alamo Bowl) was a blast.”

0:21:25 — After a big kick return and then a first down on a trick-ish play, we have a Danny Shelton sighting. He was a true freshman in 2011, and one of two eventual first-round picks on this defense — cornerback Desmond Trufant was a junior.

0:22:39 — Another fourth-and-1 and another automatic go-for-it situation. Griffin gives to Jarred Salubi and he takes it 36 yards for a touchdown. Hey, at least the Huskies got to fourth down on both of Baylor’s first two possessions? Griffin also throws a nice block on safety Sean Parker.

0:27:20 — Remember Kiel Rasp? He did get to punt in this game, after — gasp! — a Huskies three-and-out. It’s a good kick with a good roll, netting 57 yards. Good chance for Washington to establish some field position!

0:31:18 — Prior to yet another first-down throw by Griffin, you can see a Washington defensive end still motioning to the sideline as the ball is snapped. Baylor ran its offense at warp speed, and the Huskies looked utterly unprepared for it from the very start.

0:34:50 — Baylor tries to run a receiver pass to Wright, who surveys the field, doesn’t see anybody open, scrambles all the way across the field and still picks up 10 yards. Double-digit gain on a trick play that didn’t work.

0:37:00 — Another fourth-and-1. Another easy decision to go for it. Griffin sneaks and pushes the pile just enough to pick it up. On the next play, Griffin shakes off some pressure on an RPO, steps out of a sack attempt and runs 24 yards for a touchdown. Sure, why not. Pasch calls out: “Heisman!” It’s still the first quarter, Baylor has run 30 plays for 245 yards, and the Bears lead 21-7. Can Washington hire a new DC at halftime?

0:42:35 — Spielman implores the Huskies to scrap any up-tempo offense. “Run your offense,” he says, “because your defense can’t hang.”

0:46:15 — Price hits a pair of big third-down completions, then Sarkisian makes a great call on third-and-9, giving to Polk on a draw for a 15-yard gain. On the next play, Price looks for Polk on a wheel route, and he draws a pass-interference penalty. That wheel was a really effective play throughout Polk’s career.

This rewatch has me thinking: If this game were played today, at least a couple of the star players might choose to opt out, and for good reason. Ganaway was a sixth-round pick as a big, physical running back. I asked him about the opt-out trend.

“I think some of the decisions that are made today are maybe short-sighted,” Ganaway said. “At the end of the day, they have to protect their brand, and we’ve seen several stories where guys are top-10 draft picks that get hurt in a bowl game. I hope the expansion of the Playoff gets to where some of those bowl games are a lot more meaningful.

“But to someone who just loved to play the game, that misses playing the game, misses the locker room — walking out of the tunnel one last time, knowing that was senior night in some regards, it was a special moment for me, and I wouldn’t have passed it up for any opportunity in the NFL.”

0:48:45 — Hey, it’s James Johnson. The receiver had a promising freshman season in 2009, but injuries sort of curtailed his production thereafter. Here, though, he is the recipient of a 12-yard touchdown pass with Price moving to his left. The Huskies are back within one score and can breathe a bit.

0:53:30 — Baylor commits consecutive illegal substitution penalties. Don’t see that often. Let’s see if Washington can actually get off the field for once. Griffin keeps for a 10-yard gain on first-and-20 and takes a pretty good shot from UW safety Justin Glenn. The Huskies actually had a number of big hits on Griffin in this game. Just not necessarily with the ball still in his hands.

0:55:15 — And there’s a sack by defensive end Josh Shirley to force … a punt! Baylor is punting! This is where things start to turn.

0:59:40 — It’s Washington’s turn to go for it on fourth-and-short. Polk lines up at fullback, takes the handoff and bulls his way for the first. The Huskies should not have ever punted in this game and should have onside kicked after every touchdown.

1:02:15 — Nice little play-action roll out by Price for an easy touchdown to Aguilar. It’s tied, and the Huskies have to feel like they can score on every possession, too. First to 100 wins.

1:05:27 — Andrew Hudson with the strip sack, and now it’s actually starting to feel like Washington could win the game. If it scores another 50 points and forces a bunch more fumbles.

1:10:05 — What a play by Price, who climbs the pocket, evades a rusher, pump-fakes two defenders out of their shoes and scores on a 15-yard touchdown run. Again, Price was a different player with two good knees. This was downright Griffinesque. The Huskies lead, 28-21, with 1:38 left in the first half. That enough time for either of these teams to score again before halftime?

1:14:35 — Man, Shirley had a way better game than I remembered. He sacks Griffin again to force a fourth-and-9, and yep, you guessed it … Baylor goes for it. This time, Timu gets his hand on a Griffin pass attempt and the Huskies actually get off the field.

1:16:05 — Sarkisian sure hit those draw calls in this game, didn’t he? They give it to Polk on another delayed handoff on first down, and he rips off a 56-yard touchdown with 31 seconds left in the half. The Huskies trailed 21-7 at the end of the first quarter and now lead 35-21 — and they get the ball to start the second half. Whew.

1:22:45 — Thanks to some of the softest coverage you’ve ever seen, Baylor passes its way into field goal range before tacking on three points at the first-half buzzer. Washington leads 35-24 at halftime, and the teams have combined for 656 yards. In other words, they’re going to have to slow down to merely achieve Spielman’s pregame prediction.

1:26:55 — Why did Baylor go for it on fourth-and-9 at the end of the first half? “We didn’t get here by punting,” coach Art Briles replies. Indeed.

1:27:26 — Another bananas play by Price, as he pump-fakes a blitzing defender, rolls to his left, then throws across his body to Kearse for an 80-yard touchdown. The Huskies have now scored 35 points in less than a quarter of game time, and they lead 42-24.

“I think my favorite moment in the game was right before half — I think we were down by like (14) early in the half, and next thing you know, I look up and we’re up by 18,” Price recalled. “That point swing was crazy to me. I’m like, what in the hell just happened?”

1:34:29 — Pasch and Spielman discuss Griffin’s NFL prospects, and Spielman posits that Griffin needs to find a way to better protect himself, because he’s already taking a lot of big hits and “these shots pale in comparison to what he’s going to take at the next level.” Injuries did take a toll on Griffin in the NFL, and he last played for the Baltimore Ravens in 2020 before beginning his broadcast career.

1:35:00 — Trouble with the snap, trouble with the pitch, doesn’t matter. Griffin flips to Salubi for a 7-yard touchdown, and the Bears are back within 11. Baylor is just so much faster than Washington, sideline to sideline. And end zone to end zone.

1:38:25 — Jesse Callier. Yowza. A flag flies, and Pasch speculates that perhaps Baylor is bing penalized for celebrating the big hit too heartily. Spielman quips: “We finally found a good tackle tonight. There should be excessive celebration.” It’s actually not clear where the penalty occurred. And this isn’t even a Pac-12 crew.

1:41:40 — Another punt. Yawn. But it is a 52-yard net, and Rasp’s final attempt of the night. He did his job, at least.

1:44:05 — A Baylor three-and-out. My goodness. What’s wrong with Price and Griffin? Are either of these teams ever going to score again?

1:44:47 — Totally forgot about Williams’ punt return. He weaves 46 yards to set the Huskies up at Baylor’s 17-yard line. But … Polk fumbles on first down and Baylor recovers, and that, friends, is your second-half turning point. Washington could have gone back ahead by 18 points with a touchdown. Instead …

1:47:10 — There goes Ganaway, who rips off an 89-yard touchdown on Baylor’s first play. Nobody touches him. This was obviously a massive swing, made even more demoralizing by the Bears’ successful two-point try on a nifty jump pass. Washington’s lead is down to 42-39, and Baylor has all the momentum.

1:50:34 — Of course, the very next play from scrimmage is a 60-yard deep ball to Kearse, and Price finds Aguilar for a 13-yard touchdown on the next play. Huskies back up 10. The last four plays from scrimmage: Polk fumble, Ganaway touchdown, Price deep ball, Aguilar touchdown.

“We’re setting defense back about, I don’t know, 150 years?” Spielman says. “Nine-hundred yards of offense. I’m not praising any offense. Bad defense.”

Also: “This is the closest thing I’ve seen to an Arena Football game in a long time.”

1:59:15 — Baylor drives, Baylor scores. It’s Ganaway again, this time from 1 yard. It’s his second touchdown of the game. He still has three to go.

2:02:30 — Johnson is wide open over the middle for an easy 24-yard gain, and Spielman is losing it: “I think, to me, the players have no idea what they’re doing. Because you’re playing a zone defense. You can’t be that wide open. You can’t catch a curl route at 14 yards and turn and run for 10 more without being touched. You’re not seeing the ball being thrown, and you’re not breaking on the ball.”

As Price remembers: “We knew they were a two-quarters team and played a lot of Cover 4, so we just had a bunch of Cover 4 beaters. Sark called it right before the game — it’s going to be a shootout. It’s going to be a high-scoring game. He didn’t lie about it.”

2:05:20 — The drive stalls, though, and Erik Folk tries a 43-yard field goal, which he misses wide left. Starting to feel like the Huskies are leaving too many points out there.

2:06:15 — Another sack for Shirley, his third. And yet again, it doesn’t really mean anything, because Tevin Reese rips off a 78-yard run to the 2-yard line on the next play. Ganaway punches it in three plays later, and Baylor has its first lead, 53-49, since the second quarter.

2:18:05 — Quite the show of ASJ’s athleticism here. He catches the pass, bounces off a tackler, jukes another and picks up the first down. Not a lot of tight ends like that walking around in the world.

2:20:25 — Take a bow, Keith Price. Another sensational play with his legs, scrambling to his right and extending the ball across the goal line for a touchdown on third-and-goal. Four passing touchdowns, three rushing touchdowns, and two of them required spectacular plays. Washington is back up, 56-53, but with enough time left for both of these teams to score a few more touchdowns.

2:26:45 — Three plays after Griffin hits a 48-yard completion to Wright, Ganaway bulls his way for his fourth rushing touchdown. Spielman was remarking on the condition Baylor’s receivers must be in to be able to run this fast-paced offense, and man, Washington’s defense couldn’t look more gassed. It’s 60-56.

2:30:50 — I can’t believe Pasch thought it was crazy for Spielman to suggest Washington should go for it on fourth-and-1 from its own 31. Of course the Huskies had to go for it! Polk bangs forward to pick it up — on his 29th carry — and Washington holds onto the ball with a chance to drive and take the lead. As Spielman notes, UW left guard Nick Wood pretty clearly moves early, but it isn’t called.

The Huskies obviously want to keep the ball on the ground here, run clock, score late and leave as little time as possible for Baylor to counter. There are a couple exceptions: Price throws underneath for ASJ, and on the next play, the Huskies go jumbo but run play-action, and Price targets the big ol’ tight end’s enormous catch radius. They have a first down at Baylor’s 41. This drive is going to plan.

2:36:45 — It was going to plan, anyway. Price throws incomplete, Polk is stopped for a short gain, then UW runs some weird little shovel pass thing to Johnson that falls incomplete. Sarkisian always did have a tendency to get a little too cute in big moments.

2:38:30 — On fourth-and-8, Price is pressured and throws high for Williams. I couldn’t help but notice how loud the stadium was before that play. The announced attendance was 65,256, and it looks it. You don’t often see that kind of crowd at a non-major bowl game. Wonder what it will be like this year.

2:41:30 — And there goes Ganaway, one more time, to put Baylor up by the final margin. This one covered 43 yards, and he wasn’t touched … again. Spielman has so beyond had it with these defenses.

“You can’t sit back there in two-deep coverage when you get manhandled up front and get driven off the ball, and Ganaway doesn’t get tackled if it’s two-hand touch,” he says. “It’s too easy. Everybody’s getting kicked out, blown off the ball. You don’t have enough people up there on the line of scrimmage, that’s the result. You’ve got to sell out on the run.”

2:44:10 — OK, so there’s only 2:28 left, but the Huskies can score in a heartbeat, and they could always recover an onside kick, so this one isn’t quite — oh, goodness, Shelton, what are you doing? The freshman D-lineman sprints in to snag Baylor’s bounding kickoff, gets hit, fumbles, and the Bears are on it. Game over. Griffin collapses in exhaustion on the turf as he celebrates what turns out to be his final college game. He says he hasn’t made up his mind about the draft yet, but will soon. He shouts out Ganaway, who rushed for 200 yards and five scores.

“This had to be one of the most watched TV games of all time,” Griffin says.

After what can only be described as the worst defensive performance in Washington history, Sarkisian fired Holt (and two other defensive assistants) two days later, eventually replacing him with Justin Wilcox. Griffin declared for the NFL Draft and went No. 2 overall to Washington, with Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck going No. 1. Wright also was a first-round pick, and Ganaway went in the sixth round.

Eleven years later, Ganaway still remembers one other victory from that week: The Alamo Bowl pitted the two teams in a Family Feud-style trivia competition on one of the last nights before the game.

“I just want Washington fans and faithful to know that Baylor won the trivia night as well,” Ganaway said.

(Photo of Keith Price: Mario Cantu / Cal Sport Media via AP Images)

ncG1vNJzZmismJqutbTLnquim16YvK57k2loaWxhZnxzfJFrZmpqX2aGcMPArJ%2BippepvK95056vmqtdlrmiuc5mmaivnGJ%2FcX2QaA%3D%3D

Rewatching Washingtons 2011 Alamo Bowl loss: Were setting defense back 150 years

What do you remember most from the 2011 Alamo Bowl? Baylors 777 yards of total offense, the most Washington has ever allowed in a game? Keith Prices career day, highlighted by four touchdown passes and three touchdown runs?

Share!