Stanford coach David Shaw used the Pac-12 teleconference setting to tersely defend the Cardinal from accusations that they faked injuries in Saturday’s 31-28 victory over Washington.
“We don’t fake injuries,” Shaw said Tuesday. “We never have and we never will. I don’t condone it, we don’t teach it, I don’t allow it. And I don’t care what Steve Sarkisian thinks that he saw. We’ve never done it. We didn’t do it against Oregon. So why in the world would we do it against Washington?”
Huskies’ head coach Steve Sarkisian, speaking immediately after the close defeat, singled out Stanford defensive line coach Randy Hart, alleging he was instructing Stanford players to fake injuries to slow down the Washington offense.
“Their defensive-line coach (Hart) was telling them to sit down,” Sarkisian told KJR after Saturday’s game. “I guess that’s how we play here at Stanford, so we’ll have to prepare for that next time. At some point, we’ll get repaid for it. That never serves a purpose for us, and we’ll never do that.”
Shaw defended Hart on Tuesday’s conference call.
“I believe it’s unprofessional to call out an assistant coach by name on another team in the media. The only defensive line coach that I know of that has ever instructed players to fake injuries works at Washington, not Stanford,” Shaw said. “That’s not calling anybody out. That’s just stating a fact. It’s proven. It’s been admitted.”
Washington assistant and top recruiter Tosh Lupoi drew a one-game suspension as a member of the Cal coaching staff. He instructed players at the time to fake injuries in a close loss to Oregon.
Sarkisian also repeated his beef with officials in the game for their interpretation of a fourth-and-10 play that looked to give Washington a first down before it was overturned.
Shaw’s take? Sour grapes.
“We’ve beaten Washington five out of six times,” Shaw said. “But when they beat us (last year), I handled it, our players and coaches handled it. We congratulated Washington for outplaying us. We didn’t talk about the officiating. We didn’t talk about anything else that Washington did. They beat us, they outplayed us, and we took it and we moved on.”