College Football Rankings: Way-too-early Top 25 projections for 2018

Washington lost control of the Pac-12 in 2017. The defending champions failed to get past Stanford in the Pac-12 North. In the end, it didn’t matter, as the Huskies still landed a spot in a New Year’s Six bowl game. They headed to Arizona for the Fiesta Bowl against Penn State, the first time the two teams had met since the 1983 Aloha Bowl.

Back then, the Nittany Lions won 13-10 in Honolulu. Washington came up on the losing end yet again in 2017 in an exciting 35-28 thriller in the desert. Myles Gaskin was held under 100 yards in his final game with the Huskies, but he rushed for two touchdowns to keep Washington in the contest. Jake Browning went 18-of-28 for 175 yards and a touchdown, but couldn’t get much going against Penn State’s defense.

After losing a lot of defensive talent in the 2017 NFL Draft, players like Vita Vea will be coming out early this season. Chris Petersen has been doing a great job of rotating talent in as players graduate or turn professional, though, and once again Washington should have a dominant defense.

Luck wasn’t on Washington’s side in 2017, as they lost their position atop the Pac-12. But it could be merely a blip on the radar, even with the loss of some key players on both sides of the ball. They will slot in somewhere between No. 10 and No. 16 in the first AP Top 25 of 2018.