The Details: National Champions Won as One
September 29, 2016 | Football, General
By Mason Kelley
GoHuskies.com
Talk to anyone from Washington's 1991 national championship team and they will share a similar story about what sparked the unbeaten season.
That collection of Huskies was talented, sure, but that is only a small portion of what fueled those players in the program.
As the university honors the 25th anniversary of that championship season with the team returning to Montlake for Washington's Friday night matchup with Stanford, there is one thing those Huskies believed solidified their success.
"We believed in the brother next to us," defensive lineman Tyrone Rodgers said.
With players whose hometowns ranged from Marysville, Wash. to Compton, Calif. this group found a common goal forged through adversity and furthered by camaraderie.
Washington won as one.
"It was one thought, one mind, one unit, one body," Rodgers said.
But that season's success started years earlier. Linebacker Donald Jones looks back on the 1989 season as a turning point. Jones was player in transition back then. A career that started at fullback, he had been shifted to linebacker.
"I left my partner in crime (running back) Greg Lewis to go from offense to defense," Jones said.
The Huskies went 8-4 that season. It was building year, a season spent working toward the future.
"Through adversity, we just got better and better," Jones said. "Through the battles we went through we learned."
Jones recently found the Huskies' 1989 win at UCLA on TV. The players who would go on to win a national championship a few years later were freshmen and sophomores. The Huskies fell behind 21-0 in that game. They were on the road, and they were young.
"We were just learning," he said. "I saw how we would make mistakes, but we were making plays."
The Huskies rallied for a 28-27 win.
"For a young team on the road, you don't see too many respond to that," Jones said.
It was a test for the young Huskies. It provided a swift response to a simple question.
"Once you get knocked down, what kind of player are you?" Jones said. "Are you going to get back up? Are you a player that is going to stand up and fight?"
There were bumps along the way that year, but "we were fighters," Jones said. "We would lose a game, but we would fight back."
Jones believes a 51-14 win over Oregon State late in the year was the turning point for Washington. The Huskies went 10-2 the following year to set up the 1991 season.
"Our offseason workouts were the hardest ever," Rodgers said, talking about the team's preparations. "We started there with the mentality that we are the best, the only one who can beat us is us."
After a win over Stanford to open the year, the Huskies traveled to Lincoln, Neb. to play Nebraska. It was a hostile environment at the start.
"When we first walked out onto the field we were getting soda dumped on us," safety Shane Pahukoa said.
Washington trailed in that game before rallying for 36-21 victory.
"What a turn of events, at the end of the game they were standing up, cheering for us because of what a great game it was," Pahukoa said.
That game, an early test on the road, galvanized the Huskies as they moved deeper into the season.
"Walking off the field back in Nebraska, solidly beating a team in their house, I remember the feeling of togetherness," linebacker Dave Hoffmann said. "You really bind together and that's what we did back there.
"We only had one thing in mind that year and it was winning the whole thing. I really felt, walking off the field in Lincoln, that we just had to keep doing what we were doing. We had the recipe."
Hoffmann said that win showed Washington they were set up for a special season. After that, many of the Huskies' games that year were lopsided victories. But, even national championship seasons provide a little adversity.
There were close wins at Cal and at USC that year, games that – at the time – maybe didn't feel quite as close as the score.
"It was a close game (at Cal), but we didn't realize at the time how much that meant to our season," Pahukoa said.
By the time the Huskies earned a spot in the Rose Bowl, players weren't interested in the pomp and circumstance that comes with a bowl trip. They didn't want to explore Los Angeles. They didn't want to spent time at Disneyland. They were focused on the game.
"We just wanted to have a good showing," Pahukoa said.
After a 34-14 win over Michigan punctuated by Mario Bailey's Heisman pose – a move Bailey has repeatedly said he wouldn't strike again until the 25th anniversary – after a scoring a touchdown, the Huskies had completed their perfect season.
They were national champions.
That team remains close. In fact, during a recent conversation with Pahukoa, he said, "Tell Dave (Hoffmann) I'll see him Saturday."
When Rodgers is in a city where one of his teammates lives, he gives them a call. If there isn't time meet up, they catch up on the phone. Now with families and spread across the country, life has taken the players from that team in different directions, but the bond remains strong.
"These are brothers from another mother who are still my brothers," Rodgers said. "If they have pain, if something happens with their family, whatever, I feel the same pain. I feel the same joy when they triumph in anything.
"It will always stay the same. If they ever need my help, they know they can always call."
Rodgers believes it is that camaraderie that "breeds championship teams."
The players on that 1991 team were "wired the same way," Hoffmann said, so it comes as little surprise that they now share similar post-football priorities.
"We all have the same priorities in life," Hoffmann said. "Family is big – the guys are all great dads. That's what would probably please coach (Don) James the most as he's looking down on us. These guys are all great dads and they have that as a priority and, eventually, that's all it comes down to."
Like any college football team, this group of Huskies came from diverse backgrounds. On the surface, Pahukoa, a kid from Marysville, wouldn't have much in common with Jaime Fields, who grew up in Compton.
But, through a shared passion for football, the teammates grew close.
"He was the nicest, gentlest guy," Pahukoa said. "I spent as much time with him as possible."
Those Huskies built a bond by sharing a common goal.
"We believed in each other and that's it," Rodgers said. "If you're a Dawg, you're a Dawg."
Now, 25 years later, the Huskies will celebrate their past while this current group of Huskies continues to build their own something special.
"We're very thankful," Hoffmann said when asked about the team coming back to be honored. "Anytime you throw out an invitation for these guys to get together, they're going to be there. Whether it's in the middle of a cornfield or a parking lot downtown somewhere, it doesn't matter. The fact of the matter is it's going to be a very special event.
"We lived and appreciated all the moments from back then and know how much work went into what we did in those years back there. The appreciation and thankfulness runs deep."
Twenty five years ago, Washington won a national championship. The Huskies piled up victories because they played for the teammate next to them.
"I enjoyed watching Dave Hoffmann knock somebody's helmet off and I would get so crazy just like I did it," Jones said. "When I got a quarterback sack, he would be jumping all over my back, because he was so excited to see me do it."
Washington found a championship formula because, as Rodgers said, the Huskies played for "the brother next to us."
That mentality served the Huskies well then and it is a common theme for the players currently in the program, so it is only fitting that Washington celebrates its past while its present is ranked in the top 10.
"It's going to be a great game," Hoffmann said. "Stanford has earned a lot of respect over the years and it's well-deserved and it would just be an honor to play those guys on a Friday night."
