Raise your hand if you've watched more than 20 minutes of defending Pac-12 champion Washington play football this year.
Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
Washington coach Chris Petersen sounded off on his team getting consistent late starting times, and how that hurts the exposure for the Huskies. Saturday's home game will kick off at 7:45 p.m. PT (10:45 p.m. ET), and they'll follow it up with a trip to Tempe, Arizona, to face Arizona State at the same time next weekend.
Petersen isn't taking it anymore.
"I just want to say something to our fans: we apologize for these late games," Petersen said, according to the Associated Press. "And I'd also like to reiterate it has nothing to do with us or the administration," Petersen said. "We want to play at 1 p.m. It hurts us tremendously in terms of national exposure. No one wants to watch our game on the East Coast that late, and we all know it. We haven't had a kickoff before 5 p.m. this season.
"And so it's painful for our team, it's painful for our administration and we know certainly the most important part is for our fans."
He also doubled down, and placed part of the blame on the conference itself not caring about how its coaches feel about kickoff times.
"I don't think they even kind of care about my voice, or probably any of the coaches' voices," Petersen said. "I don't think there is one coach out there, or probably school, in the West that wants to play our games at late night and all of that. Everyone wants to play in the daytime."
He has every right to be upset.
The Huskies are the reigning Pac-12 champs, are ranked sixth in the AP Top 25, fifth in the coaches poll and have had their dominance this season completely overlooked. Running back Myles Gaskin is averaging a whopping 7.09 yards per carry, quarterback Jake Browning has tossed 12 touchdowns to only three picks and the defense is giving up just 3.87 yards per play.
What's more, they're outscoring opponents 220-54 this year.
That isn't the resume of an afterthought, that's the resume of a monster. Too bad nobody on the East Coast is awake long enough to see it.
