UW coach Steve Sarkisian said his quotes about Reggie Bush an "unfortunate situation"

Steve Sarkisian's mood following Saturday's 56-21 loss to Nebraska wasn't helped by his unintended role in the Reggie Bush saga the night before.

Late Friday, ESPN.com published a story quoting Sarkisian saying of Bush: "He had a chance to apologize, look like the good guy. But in giving it (the Heisman Trophy) back and not apologizing, he just looks like an idiot again."

Sarkisian, however, explained in his postgame interview Saturday that the comments came during a production meeting with the ESPN/ABC crew televising the contest and weren't meant for public consumption. The story said that Sarkisian had made the quote to Shelley Smith, who was the sideline reporter for the game.

"It's a little bit of an unfortunate situation in that the quotes came out of a production meeting for this ballgame," Sarkisian said. "In general, those production meetings are not for print media, or they would have all you guys with us when we were talking about the ballgame. It was a conversation — part of a conversation — where there were quotes on both sides. It's unfortunate. It's a great learning lesson for me about when things get said around media, they're live.

"For me, I really respect Reggie Bush. I loved having him as a player at USC. My point to all of that was, whatever happened with Reggie Bush off the field with himself or his family was not the reason why we were the No. 1 team in America, and was not the reason why he won the Heisman Trophy. We prepared better than anybody, we practiced better than anybody, and we played better than anybody — more consistently for an extended period of time. That was my point to it. If he did something wrong, give the Heisman back. If he didn't do something wrong, keep it."

Sarkisian said he had contacted Bush to explain the circumstances.

Dennison sits it out

True freshman Garret Gilliland got the start at middle linebacker for Washington after regular starter Cort Dennison was declared out with a concussion suffered on Wednesday. Dennison missed practice on Thursday with Sarkisian saying at the time Dennison was not feeling well. Tests later revealed that he'd suffered a concussion and he was ruled out Friday.

Gilliland had previously played almost primarily on special teams and UW defensive coordinator Nick Holt said, "That didn't lose us the game. I think Garret did a really solid job. He wasn't the one that was giving up all the big, big runs and stuff like that."

Gilliland had three tackles.

New line debuts

The Huskies also started another true freshman for the first time on the other side of the ball, left guard Erik Kohler. Kohler started as part of a new-look line UW showed all week in practice, which featured Ryan Tolar moving to right guard and Greg Christine to the bench.

"They were a physical team and those two defensive tackles they had were very concerning to me throughout the week," Sarkisian said. "And I felt like we needed a little more strength and size inside. That's why we went with Kohler at guard and moved Tolar over to the other guard to get us a little more strength and size inside."

Sarkisian said he thought Kohler did well, generally matched up with Nebraska's Jared Crick.

Notes

• Nebraska coach Bo Pelini pointed to the Huskers' 48-yard touchdown drive late in the second quarter as a key point in the game. Said Pelini, "I thought that was a huge drive for us. We kind of gave them one there (on a fumble at the Nebraska 6 leading to a UW touchdown), and I thought it was really the difference in the game, when we took control of the line of scrimmage on that drive. We hammered it down there."

• Pelini said the Huskers had planned to throw the ball more — they only put it up 11 times, completing seven — but didn't see a need for it. "When we kind of established the line of scrimmage and the ability to run the football, you've got to stay with what's working for you," he said.

Bud Withers contributed to this report.