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HOUSTON — There are common threads Mark Bruener can see and sense between this Husky football team and his first Husky football team.
As a true freshman tight end in 1991, Bruener tiptoed along the back of the end zone to haul in a 5-yard touchdown pass from Billy Joe Hobert in Washington’s victory over Michigan in the Rose Bowl, a win that clinched the Huskies’ perfect season and their most recent national championship.
Bruener has been to every game again this season — 14 dubs in 14 games — and he’s been around this team enough to be able to make an overarching connection between that 1991 team and this team that’s about to play Michigan in the College Football Playoff National Championship Game on Monday.
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“They’re prepared,” Bruener said simply.
What he means by that is, these Huskies — just like those Huskies — have put in the work to earn a healthy degree of self-assuredness. They’re good, they know they’re good, and they’ve proven to each other that they can handle whatever challenges come their way.
“The way this team comes out every week, they’re just so consistent in their approach,” Bruener said. “And when you’re prepared, you’re not nervous. You might have a little anxiety — that’s normal — but you’re not like, ‘Oh my gosh, what do I do!?’ Because they’re prepared.
“And in ’91, we had a veteran-led team. And if any of us young guys were acting like a nervous wreck or anything like that, they would pull us aside and set us straight and made sure we were holding up our end of the bargain. And that’s a real parallel I see between this team and that team.”
There is, of course, another strong link Bruener knows all too well: his two oldest sons, Carson and Braydon, have followed in his footsteps and have a chance to bring two more national championship rings to add to the family collection.
“I’m excited to be here, obviously,” Carson Bruener, a starting linebacker, said at the CFP media day event Saturday. “But I’m even more excited for my whole family to be able to come down here and witness all this. I know it means a lot to them.”
Carson has had a breakthrough season; he’s third on the team with 80 tackles and earned all-Pac-12 honorable mention. Braydon, a redshirt freshman, made his debut for UW in their Sept. 23 victory over Cal.
The Bruener family — Mark and Traci and the rest of their children, Allie, Chloe and Hudson — flew into Houston on Saturday. It’s a family with deep ties to UW, and 12-year-old Hudson will be wearing his favorite jersey, Carson’s game-worn No. 42, for Monday’s championship game.
“I don’t think he’s taken that thing off since I gave it to him,” Carson said.
Carson will have his own hand-me-down jersey to wear Monday evening.
For years, Mark has had his No. 85 jersey from the 1992 Rose Bowl game — white jersey with purple letters and still-bright red roses on each shoulder — hanging in a frame at the family’s Woodinville home.
He took it down, out of the frame and packed it up for the trip to Houston, and Carson plans to wear his dad’s jersey into Houston’s NRG Stadium when the Huskies make their ceremonial walk together across the field before the championship game.
“That’s going to be so cool,” Carson said.
The Bruener family poses after the Huskies’ victory over Oregon in the Pac-12 Championship game. (Courtesy Bruener family)
The Bruener family poses after the Huskies’ victory over Oregon in the Pac-12 Championship game. (Courtesy Bruener family)Less
Moments after the Huskies beat Texas in the Sugar Bowl on Monday, Carson made his way to one corner of the Superdome and found his family, who had nudged their way down to the first row of stands. They shared hugs and high-fives, and Carson passed on to Hudson the Sugar Bowl championship hat he had just gotten on the field.
It’s a scene, he said, he won’t soon forget.
“Oh man, Hudson was going nuts,” Carson said. “It’s just so special to be able to feel that love from your whole family.”
Mark Bruener kept using that same word — special — to describe this season.
“This has been a helluva ride,” said Mark, a first-round NFL draft pick in 1995 who played 14 seasons for Pittsburgh and Houston. “When the season began, I knew they had a chance to be special. But now they have a chance to be like really special.”
And one family’s perfect connection has a chance to make it the most special ending yet.
