Playoff team profiles: The 2-seed Washington Huskies

Washington has a sort of 2019 LSU-lite dynamic to their squad. Can their amazing offensive firepower carry them through the tournament?

We’re on to the next squad in the 2023-24 NCAA College Football Playoffs. I think the #3 and #4 seeds will end up being the favorites by the time we get to the New Year’s Day games, but we’re going in order here all the same.

First we tackled the #1 seed Michigan Wolverines, who endured a scandal-plagued season which saw head coach Jim Harbaugh removed from six of their 13 games. Washington had a different sort of adversity to overcome, playing a difficult schedule.

The Pac-12 was a murderer’s row this year, even if they may not have had any teams with the recruiting inputs of a national power, and Washington had to beat every one of the good teams en route to their title. They even had to beat Oregon twice before everyone would believe the Huskies were actually the better team. Not me, I wasn’t buying the Ducks in the rematch, but we’ll get into that more later.

The question now is whether a Husky team with obvious offensive firepower can actually win in the playoffs against a trio of squads who have a trait teams in the Pac-12 did not.

An ability, powered by NFL defensive tackles, to play two-high defense without getting mowed down by the run game. Let’s break it down.