Which players came up biggest for Washington football in their win over Colorado? These Huskies earned helmet stickers for their Week 4 performances.
Washington went to Boulder and took down Colorado in a second-half surge on Saturday night. The 37-10 win at Folsom Field positioned the Huskies as the favorites once again to claim the Pac-12 title.
A team cannot pull off such a comprehensive victory without big players making big plays. And while the offense was largely a one-man show on Saturday against the Buffaloes, Washington’s defense saw several stars step into the spotlight to secure the win.
These five players were instrumental in securing victory for the Huskies. Click ahead to see who earned our five helmet stickers after the rematch of last year’s Pac-12 championship game against the Buffaloes in Week 4.
Most of the best performances on Saturday for Washington came courtesy of their defense. Sophomore defensive back Myles Bryant made one of the biggest plays of the night. He picked off Steven Montez in the third quarter and returned the interception 35 yards to put Washington ahead by two touchdowns.
After earning playing time as a true freshman in 11 games last year, Bryant has stepped up his play in 2017 as part of the rebuilt Huskies secondary. The diminutive defensive back from Pasadena helped change the momentum at a time when it was still anybody’s game to win on the road.
In addition to his timely turnover and score, Bryant played a strong game all throughout the contest in Boulder. Bryant finished the day with seven tackles in the secondary. By himself, Bryant outscored the Buffaloes in the second half on Saturday night. While the interception is enough on its own to merit a helmet sticker, Bryant’s 60-minute shutdown performance against Colorado receivers would deserve recognition even if he hadn’t snagged away the Montez pass.
With plenty of questions in the passing game this season, the onus has fallen on Washington’s running game to pick up the slack. While they took a committee approach to the issue over their first three games in non-conference play, the Huskies turned toward veteran tailback Myles Gaskin in Week 4 to shoulder the load in the backfield. He responded with his first 200-yard performance of the season, gashing the Buffaloes front seven early and often in the runaway win.
Gaskin averaged nearly eight yards per carry in the road win over Colorado. Carrying the ball 27 times, Gaskin finished with 202 yards and two scores as he outscored the Buffaloes singlehandedly on Saturday. He also gained more yardage on the ground than Colorado managed as a team, and did so with 16 fewer carries.
Gaskin is making a run at positioning himself among the best running backs in the Pac-12. As the offense continues to lean on him more and more during conference play, Gaskin could see his helmet fill up with stickers in the coming weeks. He certainly earned his recognition this week after generating nearly half of the total Washington offensive output on the ground.
Myles Bryant wasn’t the only defensive back who made noise for Washington on Saturday against Colorado. Bryant had the highlight-reel pick-six in the third quarter, and deservedly received his own helmet sticker for the effort. But Miller might have been the better player in the Huskies secondary, as he led the way by snagging two interceptions from Steven Montez in the road win.
Miller snagged his two interceptions on Colorado’s final two drives of the first half. His first pick came when the game was still deadlocked at 7-7. The Buffaloes were into Washington territory and driving for a go-ahead score, but Miller killed the drive by stepping in front of Montez’s pass. He did it again on the following drive, after the Huskies kicked a field goal, snagging the ball out of the air in the endzone as Montez went for a home-run play and preserving a 10-7 halftime lead.
Miller also notched a pair of tackles on the day, as the junior from Oceanside, California put up his biggest performance of the 2017 season. In the critical road win on Saturday night, Miller read Montez like a book time and time again as he shut down the Colorado passing attack. His interceptions proved pivotal, as the Buffaloes lost any chance of stealing the momentum at home heading into halftime.
Most of this week’s helmet stickers for the Huskies go out to their defense. After giving a couple out to players in the secondary, let’s turn our attention to the linebacking corps. Redshirt senior Azeem Victor led all players on the Washington defense with 10 tackles on the night to secure the first Pac-12 win of the year against Colorado.
Victor was a disruptive force coming through the line of scrimmage from the second level. He racked up one of Washington’s five sacks on Steven Montez, and he also got a tackle behind the line of scrimmage on Phillip Lindsay. Seven of his tackles needed no assistance from teammates, which also led the Huskies on Saturday.
Especially noteworthy is the fact that Victor is playing at a high level after returning from a broken leg that prematurely ended his 2016 campaign. Though he was suspended for the season opener against Rutgers, Victor has returned to the field and reclaimed his position as the top linebacker on the team. He was all over the place at Folsom Field, making one play after another, to earn his helmet sticker this week.
Our list of helmet stickers for Washington after Week 4 wouldn’t be complete without looking at the defensive line that came up big against Colorado. The Buffaloes managed just 120 rushing yards and averaged less than three yards per carry thanks to a stout Huskies front. Anchoring that line is versatile defensive tackle Vita Vea, who made big plays on defense to help secure the win over the Buffaloes on Saturday.
Vea had only four tackles on the day, but he consistently drew multiple blockers and opened the way for others to get behind the line of scrimmage. Without Vea tying up Colorado’s offensive line, the Huskies would not have finished with five sacks in the win. Even more significant, though was his disruptive presence on the special teams unit.
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Early in the second quarter, Colorado held a 7-0 lead and had done a solid job shutting down the Huskies offense. Then the Buffaloes were forced to punt after Steven Montez was marked down short of the first down, and Vea burst through to block the punt and set up Washington’s first score of the game. Without that critical momentum changer, it is worth asking whether Washington would still have prevailed in Boulder on Saturday. Vea was critical in sealing the win.