Washington Football: 3 takeaways from comeback win over Arizona

1. Washington’s defense dominated the second half

If there’s one area of Washington’s season that hasn’t been a complete disappointment through seven games, it’s been the defense.

If the offense’s effectiveness matched the defense’s, we may be talking about a team that’s exceeding its preseason expectations — or at the very least matching them. Jimmy Lake’s defensive mind has come into play this season and the Huskies’ defense really stepped up to shut the door on Arizona in the second half.

You might look at the box score and think that the offense was the true hero in the second half, but really it just did what it was supposed to against a bad Arizona defense while the Huskies shut the door, holding the Wildcats to just three points.

Arizona wasn’t exactly gaining a ton of yards in the first half, but it was able to score 13 points by getting into Washington territory a few times and really putting the Huskies on the ropes.

How did Washington’s defense respond? With knockout punches in the second half, of course.

The Huskies had seven tackles for loss, two sacks, two interceptions, and held Arizona to under 300 total yards and 16 points on their own field. Without this unit’s second-half dominance, the Huskies fall to 2-5.