Kirk Herbstreit believes Washington controls its own destiny in the College Football Playoff picture. Win out, and the Huskies should have the opportunity to play for a national championship.

Following a 22-20 win over No. 11 Oregon State in Corvallis on Saturday night, Herbstreit — who was on the call for the game’s ABC broadcast — said UW should be getting more respect than it has to this point in the season.

“There isn’t one undefeated team that’s been tested like Washington,” Herbstreit said on ABC after the game. “They have been through a gauntlet in this conference. It’s the deepest conference. So I don’t care if they (only) survive and advance. I don’t care what it looks like. They need respect for what they’ve had to deal with because they get challenged every single week. You can’t say that about these other undefeated teams this year.”

UW is 11-0 for just the second time in program history. It has locked up its spot in the Pac-12 Championship Game, where it could eventually face Oregon again, a team Herbstreit said looks like the best one-loss team in America.

That one loss was to UW on Oct. 14. It came two weeks after Washington beat Arizona in Tucson.

The Wildcats, by the way, handled Utah on Saturday to move to 8-3 on the year.

Washington’s road wins in conference play have come against Arizona, 7-5 USC, and 8-3 Oregon State. The Huskies have home victories over 10-1 Oregon and 7-4 Utah.

“I think they control their own destiny for sure,” Herbstreit said.

The CFP selection committee kept Washington behind Florida State in the most recent Playoff rankings, though it didn’t exactly articulate why. The performances against Arizona State and Stanford were used to knock the Huskies. But after a massive win over the No. 11 team in the committee’s own rankings, it might be hard to come up with another reason to keep them out of the Playoff picture.

When the next rankings set come out, UW could very well have three wins over teams that sit inside the committee’s top 15 or 20 teams.