Montlake Memories: The 2000s
Husky Stadium Centennial Celebration
Jeff Bechthold
11/17/2020
With 2020 marking the 100th anniversary of the first football game at what is now called Alaska Airlines Field at Husky Stadium, GoHuskies.com is marking the milestone with a decade-by-decade look back at some of the big events that have taken place –football games and otherwise – at the Greatest Setting in College Football.
September 9, 2000 – Washington 34, Miami (Fla.) 29
One of the Huskies' biggest and most momentous wins of the current century came in just the second home game of the new millennium, when 74,157 fans packed Husky Stadium for the first-ever visit from the Miami Hurricanes.
The game still carried the leftover enmity from 1991, when the Huskies and Hurricanes shared the national championship, not to mention the UW's 1994 win at the Orange Bowl Stadium – the "Whammy in Miami" – when the Huskies broke Miami's 58-game home win streak.
The game began on a high note for the Huskies as Santana Moss, one of the nation's most dangerous returners, fumbled a punt thanks to a hit from UW linebacker Tyler Krambrink. The Huskies recovered and, eight plays later, Braxton Cleman reached paydirt on a three-yard run.
After a Miami field goal, the Huskies scored two touchdowns in the second quarter, on a 12-yard run from quarterback Marques Tuiasosopo and a 23-yard pass from Tuiasosopo to tight end Jerramy Stevens.
In the third, Miami scored to make it 21-9 (a two-point PAT failed) before the most memorable play of the game.
Washington freshman tailback Rich Alexis, the son of Haitian immigrants who grew up in south Florida alongside fellow Huskies John Anderson and (eventually) Charles Frederick and who had just two carries in the game, provided the biggest highlight, stepping out of a tackle and sprinting down the sideline into the east end zone for a 50-yard touchdown.
The Canes reached the end zone three more times, but a run from Pat Conniff gave the Huskies the necessary gap and Miami stalled in its final drive. Washington won, 34-29.
Two of the 74,000-plus in the stadium that day were high school recruits Frederick (Alexis and Anderson's high-school teammate from Florida) and Reggie Williams, from Lakes High, south of Tacoma. Those two, both ranked among the top prospects in the nation, both ended up signing with the UW the following February.
It was a big win by any standard. Here's what Tacoma News Tribune columnist Dave Boling opened his piece the following morning:
"Before he managed to squeeze into the tunnel beneath the stadium, Washington coach Rick Neuheisel had hugged most of the 74,000 in attendance. Hey, upset the No. 4-ranked team in the nation, the Miami Hurricanes, and a coach can be excused for getting a little cuddly.
"Then, apparently having discovered that he hadn't yet embraced a few people, he called the entire Husky team back out for a curtain call."
Several Huskies spoke of Miami players showing disrespect in the tunnel prior to the game, when the Canes players walked past the UW team meeting room.
As Bud Withers recounted in Sunday's Seattle Times:
" ... the victory could have boiled up in the tunnel before the game, as the Huskies sat in their team auditorium and heard some Hurricanes outside, woofing.
"'Puppy-dog barks,' said Jafar Williams, the UW linebacker. 'We took that real personally, that they weren't giving us any respect.'"
The Huskies and Miami finished the 2000 season with just one loss each. The Huskies finished in a three-way tie atop the Pac-10 standings, as the UW, Oregon and Oregon State all finished 7-1 in the in conference (UW beat OSU; OSU beat Oregon; Oregon beat UW).
Thanks to the tie-breaker (Oregon had a non-conference loss), the Huskies went to the Rose Bowl and beat Purdue. Oregon State smashed Notre Dame, 41-9, in the Fiesta Bowl, and Oregon beat Texas in the Holiday Bowl. All three of those Northwest teams finished in the top seven in the final AP poll. Oklahoma won the national title, with Miami at No. 2, UW No. 3 and OSU No. 4. Oregon finished No. 7.
The Canes, with an unprecedented number of future pros on its roster, won the national championship the following year, and got their revenge on the Huskies, routing them 65-7 in Coral Gables in a game that was moved to late November due to the Sept. 11 attacks (it was originally scheduled for Sept. 15).
Incidentally, the day after the 2000 victory over Miami, Husky Stadium played host to the Seattle Seahawks' season opener. The 'Hawks spent the 2000 and 2001 seasons on Montlake while their new stadium, now known as CenturyLink Field, was constructed.
November 1, 2003 – Washington 42, Oregon 10
After the highs of the 2000 season, things took a downward turn for the UW football program, starting with the controversies that eventually lead to the firing of head coach Rick Neuheisel. That firing came in June of 2003, and former Idaho and Cal head coach Keith Gilbertson, already back on the UW staff as for his second stint offensive coordinator, was tabbed to take over, at first on an interim basis.
All of the uproar took its effect as the program struggled for several years, but the 2003 team, led by the prolific offensive duo of quarterback Cody Pickett and wide receiver Reggie Williams, did provide some terrific highlights that season.
The first came in week nine of the season, as a 4-4 Washington team, which had lost three of its last four, played host to its neighbors from the south, the Oregon Ducks.
In 2003, Oregon had opened the year 4-0 and reached No. 10 in the AP Top 25, but had then lost three in a row, including blowout defeats at the hands of Washington State (55-16) and Arizona State (59-14). The Ducks had broken the bad spell a week before coming to Seattle, with a 35-0 win over Stanford.
The day began poorly for the Huskies as, after a field goal, the Ducks made it 10-0 on an 85-yard pass from Kellen Clemens to Demetrius Johnson. From there, the momentum swung to the Huskies, and it never swung back.
In the second, tailback Shelton Sampson, a redshirt freshman from Clover Park High in Tacoma, rushed for a seven-yard touchdown. After halftime, Sampson scored again, on an eight-yard carry. An Evan Knudson field goal and a 10-yard pass from Casey Paus to Charles Frederick gave Washington a 22-10 edge (UW missed a PAT and a two-point conversion attempt).
The fourth quarter was all Huskies, and all big plays. First, Paus hit Reggie Williams on a quick pass in the middle of the field and Williams took it the distance, a 63-yard score. Then, safety Greg Carothers scooped up a Ducks fumble and ran it back 55 yards. The coup de grâce came once again from Sampson, who broke off a 77-yard run for his third TD of the day. Sampson carried the ball just six times that day, but compiled 131 yards and three TDs. Teammate Kenny James rushed for 104 more. Williams had a big day with seven catches for 130 yards.
Part of the pre-game hype for the game had come from Ducks defensive back Keith Lewis, who had publicly predicted that the Ducks would be dancing on the W at the center of the field after a win.
Karma frowned on Lewis, at least in the short term. From Craig Hill's story in the Tacoma News-Tribune:
"When the game ended, the Huskies ran to mid field and celebrated briefly on the giant purple 'W.' Oregon safety Keith Lewis had predicted an Oregon victory and said the Ducks would dance on the 'W' after the game.
"'It didn't motivate me,' UW receiver Reggie Williams said of Lewis' comments. 'They're just Ducks going against a pack of wild dogs.
"'... We're just glad we beat them bad. ... I was looking to shake hands with (Oregon players) after the game, but I couldn't find them. I guess they were too cold. They got their feathers plucked.'"
Like Williams, Husky defensive tackle Terry "Tank" Johnson was quick with a good quote. More from Hill's story:
"The Huskies fell behind 10-0 before rallying much like last season. Last season, the Huskies fell behind 14-0 before winning, 42-14, in Eugene.
"'It was a big win,' defensive lineman Terry Johnson said. 'I'd rather beat the Ducks and die than lose and live because it's a tough next day after you lose to Oregon.'
"'To beat them the way we have the last two years is special,' UW coach Keith Gilbertson said. '... It was a marvelous night.'"
Paus, a sophomore from Chicago, had stepped in after Pickett suffered a blow to the head, and carried the Huskies to victory. He was more reserved when he spoke to the press, as quoted by Hill:
"'Coaches told me it was just like practice,' said Paus, who said he might have been nervous if he'd had time to think about the situation.
"'Clearly, Paus played an inspired game,' Gilbertson said."
In the Seattle Times, beat writer Bob Condotta had this from Paus:
"I felt pretty calm the way the guys picked me up. It was just another day on the field."
The same day as the Huskies' win over Oregon, incidentally, one of the craziest games in modern history took place in Lexington, Ky., where Arkansas beat Kentucky, 71-63, in seven overtimes and over the course of four hours and 55 minutes. That game played a role in the rules change for overtime that means teams must go for two after touchdowns, starting in the third extra period.
November 22, 2003 – Washington 27, Washington State 19
Just a few weeks after that Oregon victory, Washington's season came to an end against Washington State. At 5-6, the Huskies needed a victory just to keep its streak of .500 or better seasons, which had started in 1977, alive. A bowl berth was still possible as well, depending on a number of factors.
Just a year before, one of the most famous finishes in Apple Cup history, a thrilling 33-30, triple-overtime barnburner, had gone the Huskies' way. Two years prior, the Huskies won in Seattle, 26-14. In both cases, the UW win was an upset. In the 2001 game in Seattle, the Cougars came in ranked No. 9 in the nation. The previous year in Pullman, the Huskies were unranked while WSU was the nation's No. 3 team.
In 2003, Washington (at 5-6) was of course not ranked. A week before the Apple Cup, the Dawgs had been spanked at Cal, 54-7. But the Cougars were once again in the top-10, at No. 8. Under first-year head coach Bill Doba, the 2003 Cougars still harbored hopes of a berth in the Rose Bowl, and perhaps the BCS, depending on how other teams finished.
It turned out that the stars were aligned for the Dawgs once more in 2003, though they needed to wait until the very end to find out for certain.
By halftime, the Cougars had a 13-7 lead. A field goal in the third quarter made it 16-7. In the final quarter, running back Shelton Sampson scored for the UW and the Cougs got a third field goal, making it a 19-14 Cougar lead in the waning minutes.
But Washington, behind gun-slinging quarterback Cody Pickett, who had earned money as a teenaged professional rodeo cowboy prior to college and whose father, Dee, was a inducted into the Rodeo Hall of Fame in 2003, had a shot.
After holding the Cougars to that short field goal to limit the WSU lead to 19-14, the Huskies got the ball back, starting their drive on their own 27 with 4:37 left in the game. On that drive, with just over 2:00 left, the Huskies converted on a fourth-and-four from their own 45, with Pickett shaking free from a would-be sack to hit a crossing Charles Frederick, who sprinted for a 16-yard gain to the WSU 39.
A few plays later, Pickett pump-faked a short pass and then unleashed a long one down the right sideline where Corey Williams, a freshman from Las Vegas, was streaking towards the goal. The Cougar safety flashed in front of Williams, looking to intercept or knock the ball down, but it made its way into Williams arms just as he dove over the line. Pandemonium broke out at Husky Stadium as the Dawgs took their first lead of game, 20-19, with just 1:10 left. The catch was just the fifth of the season for Williams.
After the score, WSU still had a shot, needing just a field goal to win it, though starting QB Matt Kegel, who came into the game with an injured shoulder, had been replaced before halftime by redshirt freshman backup Josh Swogger.
On the third play of the following drive, in a collapsing pocket that seemed sure to result in a sack, Swogger tried a desperation toss. Unable to get anything on the pass, the ball wobbled awkwardly into the middle of the field, where Husky linebacker Marquis Cooper, in stride, caught it and sprinted 38 yards into the west end zone.
Whatever level of celebration had been started a few minutes earlier only intensified. The win was in the bag and the Husky seniors (fourth- and fifth-year), who had seen their share of both highs and lows, finished their career never having lost to the Cougars, despite having been underdogs in their last three Apple Cups.
The Sunday newspapers were full of quote from rejoicing Husky players and coaches, as well as baffled Cougars.
Here's a portion of John McGrath's column in the Tacoma News Tribune:
"'Every win is good,' said [UW coach Keith] Gilbertson, when asked to rank where the victory stood in his collection of scrapbook favorites. 'There is no such thing as a bad win. It's like pizza.
"'Every decade I've been here, I have seen some marvelous, marvelous games. And this is just real special. Despite what happened to us the last two weeks, we just hung in there and kept grinding.'
"Concluded Cooper, referring to the Huskies' six-game winning streak over Wazzu: 'We seniors never lost to them, and we never will.'"
Pickett was quoted in a story from the News Tribune's Darrin Beene: "It's a great feeling. We would all like to go back and play games that we lost, but we can't do anything about that. That's water under the bridge. The only thing that made us feel better was winning this game. Our senior class was 5-0 against Washington State and this is a good feeling."
From Reggie Williams, in a Seattle Times story by Bob Condotta: "Everybody thought it would be a landslide, but we showed everybody we are still the Huskies and they are still the Cougars."
On the other side, the sentiment from Doba, the Cougar head coach, was representative of his team: "I don't have an answer. If I did, I'd tell you," Condotta wrote.
From the Times' Bud Withers: "'You can make an argument that they're in our heads, sure,' said WSU tight end Troy Bienemann. 'The last three years, they've just found a way to win. That's what good football teams do. Usually that's us.'"
Washington, still hoping to make a bowl game for the ninth year in a row, was not selected and finished the year 6-6. As Husky fans are well aware, that was the start of a tough stretch of seasons for the Huskies.
Pickett was drafted by the 49ers, where he spent two seasons before also playing in NFL Europe and the Canadian Football League. He now lives near his hometown of Caldwell, Idaho, and is the head girl's basketball coach at Eagle (Idaho) High, which won the 5A state title in 2019.
Williams was the first-round draft pick of the Jacksonville Jaguars, and played five seasons with the Jags. To this day, he remains the Husky record holder for season and career yards and receptions, despite having played only three seasons.
Cooper was the Buccaneers' third-round draft pick in 2004, and played five seasons for six different teams. Tragically, Cooper lost his life along with two of his friends in a boating accident in the Gulf of Mexico in 2009. One of four young men on the boat miraculously survived despite spending 30 hours in the water.
Corey Williams Late-Game TD
Marquis Cooper Interception + TD
September 19, 2009 – Washington 16, USC 13
Those reading this will probably be happy that we will simply skip the several years prior to the 2009 season.
But that season, things began to turn around. The Huskies, under first-team head coach Steve Sarkisian – drawn to the job in part by his own experience in 1996 when he and his BYU Cougars suffered their own loss in Husky Stadium – had begun the season with just about the best example of a moral victory in a 31-23 loss to LSU, not bad for a team that had lost 14 in a row against the No. 11 team in the nation.
After a streak-breaking victory over Idaho, the Huskies remained at home for the Pac-10 opener vs. USC, which had been on a run as the clear king of the conference under coach Pete Carroll during the first decade of the new millennium. Sarkisian, of course, had joined the Huskies after having served as Carroll's offensive coordinator at USC, a team that had humiliated the Huskies, 56-0, a year before in the Coliseum.
Interestingly, the crowd that day in Seattle was just 61,889, a good illustration of the lows to which the UW program had fallen. In nearly any other time, a September game against USC would fill the seats.
Those who did come were probably taken by the feeling of "same old, same old" when the game got underway. USC, with starting quarterback Aaron Corp (who would give way to Matt Barkley after this game) drove the Trojans down the field with seeming ease, driving 80 yards in just six plays and two minutes, 32 seconds. Joe McKnight's seven-yard run capped the drive and gave USC a 7-0 lead. To all appearances, it seemed the Huskies were in over their heads.
On the Trojans' second drive, it looked just as bad as 25- and 27-yard runs moved the visitors down the field. But the Huskies managed to hold USC to just a field goal.
On their second drive, having punted on the first, the Huskies got things going. Junior quarterback Jake Locker moved the Dawgs, thanks to 10-plus yard passes to fullback Paul Homer, tailback Johri Fogerson and receivers James Johnson and Devin Aguilar. Locker himself punched it in with a four-yard run and the Huskies had new life with a 10-7 deficit at the end of the first quarter.
From there, the Washington defense found itself. USC's next drive ended with a fumble, forced by Mason Foster and recovered by Justin Glenn. On their next turn, the Trojans punted. After an Erik Folk field goal, the Huskies forced another punt, and the half ended on a stalled Trojans drive, the score tied at 10-10.
What had begun as a game sure to feature some big offensive totals, at least on the USC side of the stats sheet, had settled into a defensive struggle. In the third quarter, the Trojans nearly took the lead, but linebacker Donald Butler punched a ball out of the hands of a Trojans receiver and Nate Williams recovered it to get the ball back. After a UW punt, USC's next drive ended on an interception from Butler.
Washington's next drive showed promise as the Huskies moved the ball well into USC territory. A penalty stalled the drive, but Folk came through with a 46-yard field goal, improbably giving the Huskies a 13-10 lead. The teams traded three-and-outs before USC kicker Jordan Congdon tied it a 13-13 with a short field goal with just 4:07 left.
The Huskies started out their would-be, game-winning drive with a 12-yard loss when Locker took a sack. But he hit Chris Polk for seven yards and Jermaine Kearse for 21 to keep things moving.
With the clock winding down, the drive continued, highlighted by a 19-yard completion from Locker to Kearse, on a play that included a roughing the passer penalty, moving the ball to the USC eight-yard line with just seconds to go. UW ran Chris Polk for four yards to the four-yard line and called time out.
Folk, the Huskies' kicker, came on for the highest pressure kick for a Husky – however short – in years. His 22-yard boot was good, setting off pandemonium in the stands and on the field. Time had not yet quite expired, so the Huskies still had to kickoff. USC's attempt at a multiple-pitch return fizzled quickly and the game ended, with the Huskies prevailing, 16-13.
The fans in the lower level quickly overwhelmed any brief attempt to keep them off the field and the Husky players were instantly engulfed by a crowd that was collectively shedding the ignominy of the previous seasons' struggles. The Huskies had beaten the king of the hill, the No. 3 team in the nation, just one win removed from a 15-game losing streak. It was almost unbelievable.
Of course, the epic win received the kind of coverage in the newspapers not seen in Seattle in years.
John McGrath, columnist for the Tacoma News Tribune began his Sunday column with this:
"A pair of fighter jets roared across the sky just prior to kickoff Saturday afternoon. But it was another kind of flyover, about three hours later, that created an unforgettable sonic boom in Husky Stadium.
"When a football kicked off the foot of Erik Folk sailed over the crossbar of the goalposts in the west end zone, rendering Washington's stunning ambush of heavily favored USC all but official, the din was powerful enough to make the most indifferent cynic's heart race.
"A few seconds later, when time expired on the scoreboard that showed the Huskies had beaten USC, 16-13, fans rushed the field to celebrate what had to be the greatest upset in school history."
It wasn't hyperbole. it may very well have been the greatest upset in the long history of Husky football.
In Sunday's Seattle Times, columnist Jerry Brewer was equally impressed. His column started:
"Let's start with the first reaction of Steve Sarkisian, the victorious young coach who bested his mentor, restored Husky pride and rattled the nation during one seismic, seminal, sensational afternoon.
"'Wow,' Sark said.
"Remarkably, that little word managed to contain this enormous feat. The University of Washington football team, which had lost 15 consecutive games just nine days ago, defeated No. 3 (like, in the whole country, dude) USC 16-13 at Husky Stadium on Saturday.
"Wow.
"The Huskies won with quarterback Jake Locker delivering the first game-winning fourth-quarter drive of his college career.
"Wow.
"In one game, they punctuated their rapid return to significance, altered conservative preseason predictions of four or five victories and, most likely, launched themselves into the Top 25 for the first time in six years. Oh, and they avenged a 56-love loss from last season.
"Wow."
The Times' other columnist, Steve Kelley, focused on Locker, the Huskies' star quarterback from Ferndale, Wash. Here are the first four paragraphs:
"Jake Locker had these four minutes to erase all the frustrations of the past 24 months. These four minutes to remind himself why he came to Washington, remind himself of all the possibilities that were here.
"Four minutes to put himself in the company of all the great Washington quarterbacks, who did what he had to do in the last minutes of a big game in the late-afternoon din of Husky Stadium.
"Locker had these four minutes to prove this program was back, sooner and better than anyone could have expected. Prove this to a stadium full of doubters who had been numbed by failure for nearly a decade.
"Four minutes could make the memory of an 0-12 season recede like the tides. Four minutes could give this program more hope than it's had since Tui. Four minutes and Jake Locker finally could feel the joy that comes from winning a game this big on a Saturday during college-football season."
While the 2009 season did not see the Huskies return to a bowl game, it did provide at least one more epic moment at Husky Stadium ...
October 10, 2009 – Washington 36. Arizona 33
Two days before Christmas of 1972, one of the most famous plays in American football history happened in a playoff game between the Raiders and the Steelers, when Pittsburgh running back Franco Harris snatched a deflected pass from Terry Bradshaw microseconds before it hit the turf and ran it in for a game-winning touchdown in the waning moments.
Pittsburgh sportscaster Myron Cope called the play the "Immaculate Reception."
To this day, there are those who contend the ball hit the ground, or that it had deflected off the hands of Steeler John Fuqua rather than Raider defender Jack Tatum (the rules of the day dictated that if an offensive receiver touched a ball, only he was eligible to catch it). The fact is that the TV cameras did not follow the ball and there's no incontrovertible proof one way or the other.
Flash forward 37 years later to Husky Stadium and Washington's 36-33 win over Arizona. Switch out running back Franco Harris for UW linebacker Mason Foster, and swap John Fuqua's (or Jack Tatum's) hands for Wildcats receiver Delashaun Dean's toe. At quarterback? Nick Foles for Terry Bradshaw.
And there you have: the "Immaculate Interception." Or, the "Immaculate Deflection."
Either way, it was nearly miraculous.
Trailing 33-28 with 2:49 left in the game, Washington (one week removed from a heart-breaking, 37-30 overtime loss at Notre Dame) needed to stop the Wildcats and get the ball back. On the first play of a drive to try to put the game away, Foles, the Arizona QB who had already thrown 35 completions that afternoon, opted to pass, throwing the ball to his right on a short screen to Dean.
Dean's momentum had him moving away from the direction of the pass and, as he tried to stop and come back, he slipped and fell. The ball hit him on the toe and popped up into the air, directly into the hands of Washington linebacker Mason Foster, a former high school quarterback from the town of Seaside, Calif., in the Monterey Bay area, who had gone un-recruited by every major college in the west before the Huskies offered him a scholarship.
Foster, who had run past Dean to cover another receiver, had then reversed course to run back downfield after the pass was thrown. The ball bounced right into his belly, and he immediately turned 180 degrees to the east and sprinted down the north sideline, 37 yards and into the end zone.
The Huskies on that sideline erupted, as did the 61,621 faithful in the Husky Stadium stands, shaking the television cameras in an epic celebration.
The play was reviewed by the officials, and the referee announced that it had been "confirmed."
Washington scored a two-point conversion to make it a 36-33 lead and then had to hold Arizona once more, as the Cats tried to drive for a game-tying field goal or a game-winning touchdown. Foles led his team into UW territory, but a Desmond Trufant interception ended the threat and iced the game for Washington.
Less than a month after the win over USC, this win was more than even the most optimistic Husky fan could want.
Seattle Times' columnist Jerry Brewer put it this way:
"It felt like this game would end in confidence-crushing fashion. Instead, we witnessed something to marvel.
"Actually, Washington linebacker Mason Foster saw it first, a miracle in the form of a football bouncing off Arizona wide receiver Delashaun Dean's foot. Foster grabbed the miracle, tucked the miracle under his arm and ran 37 yards for a game-winning, season-saving touchdown that made old Husky Stadium rock.
"When we last saw this team at Husky Stadium, the crowd rushed onto the field to celebrate a signature victory over then-No. 3 USC. If this is the way home games are going to go this season, pass the heart medicine, pack the house and plan on staying until every participant has walked off the field.
"Considering the dire nature of this game and the drama at the end, the Huskies' 36-33 victory Saturday was almost as big as the USC game. And, certainly, it was sweeter."
After the peak of the "Immaculate Interception," the Huskies' fortunes turned as the 3-3 Dawgs lost four in a row before righting the ship with impressive, season-ending wins over Washington State (30-0) and Cal (42-10). The following year, the Huskies returned to a bowl game, beating Nebraska (a team that beat the Huskies 56-21 earlier in the year) in the Holiday Bowl, 19-7.
Foster, who finished second in the nation in tackles in 2010, went on to be the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' third-round pick in the 2011 NFL Draft. He played eight seasons, four each in Tampa and Washington.
Locker was the eighth pick in the 2011 draft and played four seasons in Tennessee before retiring. He lives with his family in his hometown of Ferndale, Wash.