SEATTLE _ There were drops of blood all over his gold pants. There was a bright-red scrape on the right side of his neck, large gashes on both points of his elbows and blood dripping out of the glove on his right hand.
Ben Burr-Kirven wasn't bothered by any of it in the moments after the Huskies' 27-13 victory over Colorado on Saturday afternoon at Husky Stadium.
Washington's senior linebacker is pretty sure the finger nail on his right middle finger got torn off during a fourth-down stop in the third quarter. He didn't want to take his glove off in the middle of the game to find out for sure, so he simply had his middle and ring fingers taped together and kept playing, kept tackling.
Similarly, there wasn't any magical formula Burr-Kirven pointed to for how the No. 15 Huskies rebounded from a gut-wrenching overtime loss at Oregon last week. In the buildup to the Colorado game, he said it didn't take long for the Huskies (6-2, 4-1 Pac-12) to put into context where they are in the Pac-12 North standings and what this season could still hold for them.
"We know there's a lot of football left to be played. All it takes is one game here or there and we're back in the Pac-12 championship," he said. "We have a lot of leaders on our team, and when we have a game like Oregon last week, you always look and think, 'What can I do to make us better? To help our guys? ... I've been here for a long time, and it's time to make those plays."
Burr-Kirven played all 63 defensive snaps against Colorado and finished with another 15 tackles, further bolstering his case as the Pac-12's defensive player of the year. The 6-foot, 220-pound senior _ undersized by traditional standards of a middle linebacker _ came into the weekend leading the nation in tackles, and now has 108 in eight games (the most tackles by a Husky since John Timu had 109 in 2014).
It was Burr-Kirven's interception of Colorado's Steven Montez _ returned 20 yards to the Colorado 15 _ that sealed the win for the Huskies, who remain atop the standings in a crowded Pac-12 North.
"He is unbelievable," UW quarterback Jake Browning said of Burr-Kirven. "I think it's funny that a lot of people are like, 'Oh, he's too short.' And I'm too short and I don't have a strong enough arm. And Myles (Gaskin) is too short. But I think we've won a lot of games in the Pac-12 with people who are 'too-something' and 'not good enough for this or that.' So bring it."
Playing without Gaskin (shoulder), their star running back, the Huskies didn't play their most inspired game of the season. It was a discombobulated first half, and Browning's interception late in the second quarter silenced the announced crowd of 68,798 in Husky Stadium.
Trying to build some cushion leading 17-13 early in the fourth quarter, the Huskies stumbled again when junior receiver Chico McClatcher fumbled the ball out of the end zone at the end of a 14-yard reception. That gave Colorado the ball at its own 25.
But UW's defense forced Colorado (5-2, 2-2) to punt _ after a diving pass breakup from Myles Bryant _ and the Huskies then drove 84 yards on 12 plays, capped by Browning's fourth-down completion to Aaron Fuller for a 26-yard touchdown after the Buffaloes' all-out blitz.
Even without Gaskin, the Huskies ran for a season-high 201 yards behind Salvon Ahmed (73 yards, one touchdown), Sean McGrew (58 yards in his first career start) and Kamari Pleasant (35 yards and one TD).
"Proud of the guys for grinding that one out," Petersen said. "We made it a little bit harder on ourselves sometimes than we needed to, but sometimes the other team causes those things to happen."
Washington came into weekend with a minus-1 turnover margin _ nine giveaways by the UW offense against eight take-aways from the UW defense in the first seven games _ and there was a 17-point swing Saturday as a result of turnovers, or turnovers not made. In the first quarter, safety JoJo McIntosh whiffed on what looked like an easy fumble recovery, only to have Colorado recover at its own 45-yard line. Three plays later, Montez threw a 37-yard touchdown pass to freshman receiver Daniel Arias, a Mill Creek native making the first reception of his career.
But over the game's final 54 minutes, the Huskies allowed Colorado only two field goals _ and one of those came on a sudden change after Browning's interception gave the Buffaloes possession at the UW 10-yard line.
Colorado finished with a season-low 263 offensive yards.
"At the end of the day, holding that team to 13 points is no small feat," Burr-Kirven said.
Winning that kind of game after a sluggish start, he said, is an important building block.
"It shows that we're a good football team," he said. "If you're not a good football team, it's easy to let those games slip away from you. It shows the maturity of this team. It would be easy to go into halftime _ even though we were winning _ to feel like we were losing, just the way the half ended and the way the atmosphere was; the stadium was real quiet. But we've got a lot of old guys who have played a lot of ball and I think that's what really shows up in that kind of game."
