Brent Musberger talks Washington Huskies, Las Vegas Bowl

When ESPN assigned broadcast crews for bowl games, it gave us all a treat when it assigned its top team of Brent Musberger, Kirk Herbstreit and Tom Rinaldi to cover the MAACO Bowl in Las Vegas. The bowl features the Washington Huskies and the Boise State Broncos.

Musberger was generous enough to share his thoughts on the game, and provide some interesting takes on the Huskies' football program, with the Times' Bob Condotta.

Here are some of the highlights.

On the matchup:

...I think we enter into this game with a few question marks about the Huskies and what level they are playing at right now. But I suspect that their motivation is going to be pretty good, matched against Boise State. As everybody knows and has written about, it's interesting that these two teams are going to open up next season in Seattle and here they are now. Boise State's point of view in this game is interesting to me because this is the third straight year they have gone to Vegas.. And I am assuming that sometimes you get tired of going to the same old locale when you go to bowl games and how motivated are you going to be going back?...

On what Washington needs to do to win:

"...it's going to be interesting to see how Washington attempts to move the ball against this defense. It's probably the key to the game if Washington can get its offense going. I did the Boise State-Utah bowl game in Vegas a couple of years ago (a 26-3 Boise State win) and Utah fell behind early and was never able to come back. And I think that's going to be very critical for the Huskies to stay within distance. If they can do that and get into the fourth quarter with the game on the line, that's all you can ask for in a game like this."

On UW getting back to being respected nationally:

"...I would think the focus would be trying to get back on the stage out West against Boise State. Obviously they were taken out of the national stage when they went to Baton Rouge and got drilled by a good LSU team. So we all have questions about the Huskies right now and we'll see what they come up with against Boise State."