The Day After: 21 thoughts on Washington's win over USC

The Huskies keep on winning at home.

SEATTLE — This is the 14th Washington football season to include games against both USC and Michigan.

The Huskies defeated both the Wolverines and Trojans in only four of those 13 previous seasons: 2001, 1991, 1983 and 1977.

Nobody will mistake this year’s Michigan team for a contender, and USC has lost 10 of its last 16 games. Considering the Huskies’ own circumstances in Jedd Fisch’s first season, though, these victories over traditional powers — both having occupied a certain place in the telling of Washington’s football history — still qualify as significant.

That’s true of Saturday’s 26-21 win over the Trojans for another reason, too: it brings the Huskies (5-4, 3-3 in Big Ten) within one victory of bowl eligibility, with a winnable game against UCLA sandwiched between not-as-winnable trips to Penn State and Oregon.

“This year hasn’t gone how we wanted,” said senior linebacker Carson Bruener, “but it’s something where we’ve got to just keep our head down and keep working, and get to that sixth win so we can extend the season, for sure.”

Here’s what else I’m thinking about after Saturday’s game.