Washington botches hook and lateral attempt at end of Fiesta Bowl

Washington’s Dante Pettis lost his head for a second at the end of the Fiesta Bowl, and it cost the Huskies the win.

The 2017 Fiesta Bowl between the Penn State Nittany Lions and the Washington Huskies was exciting as everyone thought it would be from the time the matchup was announced earlier this month. In the end, it was Penn State who came away with the hard-fought win, 35-28.

However, with time running down in this one, the Huskies had the chance to eventually tie the game and send it into overtime, if it weren’t for a major flub from star wide receiver Dante Pettis.

Penn State had just missed a field goal in the fourth quarter to ice the game, which meant the Huskies were going to get the ball back with some life, and some hope. With their chances running out, head coach Chris Petersen went to the familiar hook and lateral play — you know, the one he pulled out in 2007 to help take down mighty Oklahoma when he was at Boise State. At first, it seemed pretty successful, as they were able to get the ball into Pettis’ hands and he was breaking away from the Penn State defense.

Then, the mistake happened. As the Nittany Lions defense was catching up to him, instead of going out of bounds with some time on the clock, he turned to lateral the ball, but instead of it prolonging the play, it turned into a game-sealing interception for Penn State.

Simply put, Pettis just wasn’t paying attention to how much time was on the clock. Had he just went out with the ball, there would have been enough time left to give quarterback Jake Browning a shot to heave the ball into the end zone and hope for the best.

This one is going to haunt Pettis for a while.