How the Huskies Can Pull the Biggest Upset in College Football This Season

The UW just needs to dial back eight years and remember what happened in Seattle.
Mish Powell tackles Noah Whittington during the 2022 UW-Oregon game in Eugene, won by the Huskies 37-34.
Mish Powell tackles Noah Whittington during the 2022 UW-Oregon game in Eugene, won by the Huskies 37-34. / Troy Wayrynen-Imagn Images

No one in their right mind is going to pick the University of Washington football team to beat Oregon on Saturday in Eugene. Not me. Not you. Not any Vegas odds-maker.

After all, it's the five-loss and rebuilding Huskies, currently sitting tied for seventh place in the Big Ten, going up against the locked and loaded, unbeaten and nationally No. 1-ranked Ducks.

Yet in the back of their heads, beneath those unending layers of feathers and bravado, even the staunchest Oregon followers have to be asking themselves this one nagging question that's giving them a dull headache and just won't go away:

Could the UW (6-5 overall, 4-4 Big Ten) possibly rise up and spoil everything?

Three three-point losses over the past 24 months when you supposedly had better players, better facilities and a better team each time should cause plenty of concern among the Eugene faithful right off the bat. What they didn't factor into each of those equations was, as good as Dan Lanning is and certainly getting better all the time, he got out-coached by Kalen DeBoer, who's never been afraid of walking into a lion's den -- i.e., see his new job at Alabama.

Jedd Fisch is a lot like DeBoer in the sense that he seems both relaxed and demanding at the same time while in the. moment and capable of, say, beating name schools such as Michigan and USC at home with a completely redrawn football team that has its definite strengths and weaknesses.

"Now it's a matter where everything goes to a one-game season here against Oregon," the UW coach said.

Fisch already has the Ducks (11-0, 8-0) guessing as to what he's going to do for a starting quarterback for this season-ending match-up, with the ready option to totally unleash the problematic freshman Demond Williams Jr. at Autzen Stadium and see if he can get the host team back on its heels from the outset?

All of the pressure is on Lanning's guys this weekend, not Fisch's alternately inept and gloriously inspired Bad New Bears.

Huskies quarterback Michael Penix Jr. (9) holds the the 2023 Pac-12 championship game MVP trophy.
Huskies quarterback Michael Penix Jr. (9) holds the the 2023 Pac-12 championship game MVP trophy. / Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

A 30-point loss by the Huskies simply won't hurt them in the long run. An upset Oregon loss would be devastating to the other side.

Imagine the suffering for all of those people up and down the I-5 corridor, from Portland to Medford, who have reveled in the Ducks doing everything right so far by beating the likes of Ohio State, Michigan, Boise State and most recently Wisconsin -- if Oregon somehow lost.

Well, we've seen the excruciating upset take place before at Husky Stadium, one that never should have happened, was totally unexpected and just wasn't in the cards for anyone.

After all, Clay Helton, a man who couldn't get fired soon enough, pulled it off.

Eight years ago in Montlake, a powerful and fourth-ranked Washington football team took its 9-0 record up against 6-3 and unranked USC -- a month after the Huskies had utterly destroyed the Ducks 70-21 at Autzen -- and laid an absolute egg with a resounding 26-13 defeat to the Trojans.

USC wide receiver Darreus Rogers (1) celebrates with teammates after scoring a touchdown against the Huskies in the 2016 game
USC wide receiver Darreus Rogers (1) celebrates with teammates after scoring a touchdown against the Huskies in the 2016 game. / Joe Nicholson-Imagn Images

The Trojans opened that season in 2016 by losing to Alabama 52-6 and dropping three of their first four games.

Yet they managed to to show up and stick it to a UW team headed for the CFP semifinals and built around Jake Browning, Budda Baker, Taylor Rapp, Trey Adams, John Ross, Dante Pettis, Myles Gaskin, JoJo McIntosh and Sidney Jones, all future NFL players.

On that day, the Trojans were faster and more physical, and wanted it more. They jumped to a big first-half lead and never let the UW get closer than four points in the second half before pulling away. They even physically hurt the Huskies, sending standout linebacker Azeem Victor to the locker room on a cart in the first half with a season-ending broken leg.

So the Ducks have a lot to think about as they assess this Washington football team, which did just enough to win those three previous rivalry games by 37-34 in Eugene, 36-33 in Seattle and 34-31 in Las Vegas with the since departed Michael Penix Jr., now with the Atlanta Falcons, playing a heroic role each time.

Then again, Oregon finally got wise this year and, even though Bo Nix definitely was no wallflower, the Ducks just maybe picked up that missing ingredient by adding a left-handed quarterback in Dillon Gabriel, same as Penix, to get things done.

Everybody has to be wondering what's coming.

For the latest UW football and basketball news, go to si.com/college/washington


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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.