For Whatever Reason, Huskies Usually Have Trouble with UCLA

The Bruins have won 15 of the past 20 meetings in the series.

UCLA running back Keegan Jones (22) tried to avoid UW tackler Carson Bruener in the 2022 game. / Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images

In case anyone has forgotten, UCLA presents an ongoing problem for the University of Washington football team.

The Huskies have captured their past three games against both bitter rival Oregon and exalted presence USC, but they've lost 15 of their past 20 meetings with the intrusive and troublesome Bruins, including the last two.

When he was coaching in Montlake for two seasons, Kalen DeBoer beat every team in the Pac-12 except for one -- the Bruins.

When the UW plays against the powder blue and gold, it more often takes a powder.

It doesn't matter who's coaching the college football team nearest Hollywood, whether it's been an extra social Red Sanders, a extra vengeful Tommy Prothro or a super distracted Chip Kelly, UCLA has held the upper hand over the Huskies in football like no one else in the Pacific Time Zone in recent times.

As the UW (5-5 overall, 3-4 Big Ten) and the Bruins (4-5, 3-4) prepare to meet one more time on Friday night at Husky Stadium -- in a Black-Out game with a bowl bid likely riding on the outcome for each side -- momentum once more favors UCLA, which takes a three-game win streak up against Jedd Fisch's team coming off its worst performance of the season, a 35-6 loss to Penn State.

Fisch has coached both of these teams, guiding the Bruins for two outings in 2017 as an interim leader replacing the fired Jim Mora Jr., the former UW linebacker, and now the Huskies for 10 games and counting as their full-time guy going forward.

"I always wanted to be a head coach, there was never a doubt," said Fisch, who became Arizona's football leader in 2021 before joining the UW this year.

UCLA currently holds a 42-32-2 advantage in a series that began in 1932 with the Huskies taking a 19-0 victory in Los Angeles.

The UW, in fact, won the first four games all by shutout and six of the first eight before the Bruins finally began to fight back with a little more backbone.

Jackie Robinson, yes, that Jackie Robinson, broke a 63-yard punt return to the 5 against the Huskies in 1939. / Raley

In 1939, UCLA showed up in Seattle with star power only no one knew it quite yet. The Bruins unveiled a new running back named Jackie Robinson, who would become better known for his baseball exploits but broke a 63-yard punt return that set up the winning score in the Bruins' 14-7 victory at Husky Stadium.

"He reversed the field at least five times," said the late Walt Milroy, then a UW student, a Huskies baseball player and a witness to Robinson's greatness. "They didn't tackle him -- he just collapsed. It was the most exciting run I've ever seen."

UCLA really began to dominate the series when Sanders took over as coach in 1949-57 and won seven games, lost one and tied one against the Huskies He never made it to the 1958 season. He died in a Los Angeles hotel room in mid-August that year after suffering a heart attack while in the company of a prostitute, which made for embarrassing headlines for the school.

Things got a little contentious in the series when a Prothro-coached Bruins team ran up the score and beat a shorthanded UW 57-14 in Los Angeles in 1969, with all of the Huskies' African-American players staying home in protest of coach Jim Owens' racial practices. Prothro and Owens never liked each other. A year later, Owens had his team pull an onside kick late in the game while trying to score as much as he could in the Huskies' 61-20 victory.

The last time the UW led in this series was 1976, when it held a 20-19 edge over the Bruins even though it lost 30-21 that season. The last time everything was all even between the schools was in 1996, when the series stood at 27-27-2 after the Huskies won 41-21 that season.

In 1983, Rick Neuheisel began a long association with the Huskies when the UCLA quarterback completed an NCAA-record 25 of 27 passes in a 27-24 victory over the UW in Los Angeles and he ended up as the Rose Bowl MVP by leading the Bruins past Illinois 45-9 with a 4-touchdown pass outing.

Sixteen years later, Neuheisel became the Husky coach for four seasons, led the team to an 11-1 record in 2000 and a 34-24 Rose Bowl victory over Purdue and Drew Brees, and was fired in 2002 for his involvement in a gambling scandal. He sued the school and won a $4.5 million judgement after he claimed he was unfairly terminated. The UW still hadn't see the last of him.

In 2008, Neuheisel returned as the UCLA coach for four seasons, led the Bruins to two victories in three tries over the Huskies, and was fired again.

One of the UW's more difficult losses to its SoCal friends came in 1990 when Don James' No. 2-ranked and once-beaten entry lost to UCLA 25-22 at Husky Stadium, a team with a losing record (4-5), and was knocked out of the running for a national championship, which came a year later.

The Huskies have lost their two most recent Bruins games, 24-17 in 2021 to a Jimmy Lake team in Seattle and 40-32 two years ago to DeBoer's crew at the Rose Bowl, with Kelly benefitting in both outings as a short-timer as the UCLA coach. He quit following last season, when the teams didn't play, because he no longer was interested in being a head coach and joined Ohio State as the offensive coordinator.

Kelly obviously had enjoyed more than enough Husky goodwill.

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