Following a 27-24 loss to the Minnesota Golden Gophers, the Washington Huskies won't be sniffing the top 25 of the US LBM Coaches Poll for a while.
After beginning Big Ten play as the No. 23 team in the country, Jedd Fisch's team had a golden opportunity to move up the rankings and take advantage of some turmoil around the Big Ten, with three ranked teams in the conference losing. USC fell at home to Oregon, while Michigan suffered a last-second loss in the Big House to Iowa, and Wisconsin went on the road to take down Penn State.
However, Fisch's team looked largely unprepared to deal with coach P.J. Fleck's squad, as the Huskies went down 14-0 in the first quarter following an early interception from Demond Williams Jr. and another slow start
from the offense. The end result? 20 points in the poll.
In a game full of self-inflicted blunders and mismanagement from the Huskies, one stood out above the rest. With UW down 27-17 with around 2:30 to play, wide receiver Chris Lawson picked up a first down and got out of bounds. That stopped the clock to move the chains, but the Huskies chose not to go up-tempo and instead made a late substitution, allowing Minnesota to do the same as the clock wound all the way down to the two-minute timeout, wasting a clock stoppage for Washington.
"I thought there was a point there that Chris got knocked out of bounds, and it was a first down. So then they were resetting the chains, so they stopped the clock on the first down. And then we wanted to get a touchdown," Fisch said after the game.
"We wanted to get a certain red zone play in. And we wound up subbing, and the sub came in way too late. And with that, then they got to hold another 10 seconds. So that's my fault. There was a certain personnel group that I wanted in the game for that play, so we wound up having to call it after the two-minute warning."
Now, the Huskies will have to head down to Los Angeles to face off with the No. 18 Trojans, who dropped six spots after their loss to the Ducks. Here's how the top 25 shaped up.
Schools Dropped Out
No. 19 Louisville; No. 20 Texas A&M; No. 23 Washington; No. 24 Oklahoma;
Others Receiving Votes
Oklahoma State 126; Kentucky 123; Boise State 112; Pittsburgh 97; Virginia Tech 84; Nebraska 67; Wake Forest 48; Louisville 42; Wisconsin 39; Cincinnati 35; Auburn 22; Washington 20; James Madison 17; Virginia 15; Texas A&M 14; Northwestern 12; North Dakota State 11; Massachusetts 9; New Mexico 7; Minnesota 7; Oklahoma 6; Clemson 5; Arizona 3; Western Michigan 2; UTSA 2; West Virginia 1;
The US LBM Board of Coaches for the 2026 season: Tim Albin, Charlotte; Blake Anderson, Southern Mississippi; Dave Aranda, Baylor; David Braun, Northwestern; Jeff Brohm, Louisville; Fran Brown, Syracuse; Neal Brown, North Texas; Troy Calhoun, Air Force; Jamey Chadwell, Liberty; Curt Cignetti, Indiana; Sonny Cumbie, Louisiana Tech; Spencer Danielson, Boise State; Ryan Day, Ohio State; Kalen DeBoer, Alabama; Manny Diaz, Duke; Jake Dickert, Wake Forest; Matt Drinkall, Central Michigan; Eliah Drinkwitz, Missouri; Sonny Dykes, TCU; Jason Eck, New Mexico; Mike Elko, Texas A&M; Tony Elliott, Virginia; Matt Entz, Fresno State; Jedd Fisch, Washington; James Franklin, Virginia Tech; Willie Fritz, Houston; Scott Frost, Central Florida; Tony Gibson, Marshall; Alex Golesh, Auburn; Will Hall, Tulane; Blake Harrell, East Carolina; John Hauser, Ohio; Clay Helton, Georgia Southern; Tyson Helton, Western Kentucky; Charles Huff, Memphis; Butch Jones, Arkansas State; KC Keeler, Temple; Charles Kelly, Jacksonville State; Brent Key, Georgia Tech; Zach Kittley, Florida Atlantic; Collin Klein, Kansas State; Tre Lamb, Tulsa; Rhett Lashlee, SMU; Clark Lea, Vanderbilt; Lance Leipold, Kansas; Pete Lembo, Buffalo; Sean Lewis, San Diego State; Dowell Loggains, Appalachian State; Joey McGuire, Texas Tech; Jeff Monken, Army; Kirby Moore, Washington State; Eric Morris, Oklahoma State; Dan Mullen, UNLV; Billy Napier, James Madison; Pat Narduzzi, Pittsburgh; Brian Newberry, Navy; Ken Niumatalolo, San Jose State; Barry Odom, Purdue; Tim Polasek, North Dakota State; Tavita Pritchard, Stanford; Ricky Rahne, Old Dominion; Matt Rhule, Nebraska; Rich Rodriguez, West Virginia; Jay Sawvel, Wyoming; Morgan Scalley, Utah; JaMarcus Shephard, Oregon State; Kirby Smart, Georgia; Will Stein, Kentucky; Jon Sumrall, Florida; Lance Taylor, Western Michigan; Jeff Traylor, Texas-San Antonio; Scotty Walden, Texas-El Paso; Kyle Whittingham, Michigan; Casey Woods, Missouri State.
This article originally appeared on Huskies Wire: Washington football plummets out of US LBM Coaches Poll
