At Rutgers, Washington played 'two teams' — and lost

All those penalties, Will Rogers said, are 'killing us. It’s really killing us.'

PISCATAWAY, N.J. — Do not lose sight, as you process the ways in which Washington managed to lose to Rutgers here on Friday night, of the irony nestled within one of the Huskies’ most critical mental errors.

That is: Rutgers scored a touchdown late in the first half of this 21-18 victory because a Washington player was too eager to begin celebrating.

There will be none of that on the flight home from New Jersey.

If ever the Huskies have suffered a more confounding defeat than this one, they probably didn’t have to travel so far to do it. The Big Ten made sure Washington’s first road trip as a conference member was reflective of college football’s modern-day absurdity — the kind UW signed up for, mind you — by sending the Huskies across the country on a Friday night to face Rutgers’ best team in years.

And yet if all you knew was that UW totaled 521 yards to the Scarlet Knights’ 299 … that Will Rogers passed for 300-plus and that UW rushed for 200-plus … that UW had 23 first downs to Rutgers’ 15 … that Denzel Boston went over 100 yards receiving and Jonah Coleman went over 100 yards rushing … that the Huskies did not commit a turnover nor allow any special-teams scores, but did block a Rutgers field goal attempt … that Rutgers would not have a sack or a single TFL of a UW running back … then you likely would not have assumed that coach Jedd Fisch would step to the postgame microphone, in front of a UW backdrop set up inside a small room with a sink and a microwave, and describe thusly his locker-room message:

“You can’t play two teams. You can’t play ourselves and our opponent.”