Huskies Return to Autzen: Don't Forget to Duck

The UW has a 12-17 record at Oregon's vaunted stadium.

Huskies offensive tackle Roger Rosengarten (73) celebrates a 37-34 win at Autzen Stadium in 2022. / Troy Wayrynen-Imagn Images

EUGENE, Oregon -- With all of these landmark moments taking place in 1967, the first Big Mac sold in Pennsylvania for 45 cents and a surgeon completed the first human heart transplant in South Africa, two events seemingly always in conflict with each other, while soul singer Aretha Franklin released her signature hit "Respect."

That same year In Eugene, Oregon, Autzen Stadium opened.

For the 57 years it's been in operation, this 54,000-seat football palace has given that coastal and scenic state and its loyal fan base a lasting taste of success, a fast-beating ticker and plenty of admiring attention culled from nearly everyone across the college landscape for how the Ducks play the game.

People in Seattle, however, would just as soon see the place flooded by the nearby Willamette River, have all of that green decor turn into two-foot high grass covering the playing surface or mangy mold hanging off the walls, and thus require it to be condemned, abandoned and razed.

For the 30th time, the University of Washington football team steps into the bowl-like facility on Saturday afternoon, facing possibly Oregon's best offering, the 11-0 and No. 1-ranked Ducks. having won just a dozen games there over nearly six full decades.

Autzen Stadium is shown hours before the 2022 UW-Oregon kickoff. / Dan Raley

University of Washington football coach Jedd Fisch might be the only one on the other side of this football rivalry who looks at Autzen with wonderment rather than abject scorn. Some say give him time.

"It's quite an atmosphere," he said this week. "It's got great energy. Good music."

Good music?!

Fisch must be an Animal House fan. After all, that memorable 1978 major motion picture with a comedic bent, and starring John Belushi, Tim Matheson, Donald Sutherland and Kevin Bacon, was partially filmed in Autzen among many other Eugene landmarks.

At the end of the third quarter for every game, fans pause and belt out an enthusiastic rendition of "Shout," an Animal House anthem. Once those niceties are dispensed with, emboldened Ducks followers have been known to pelt the Huskies with dog biscuits, with former UW linebacker and eventual Secret Service agent Dave Hoffmann responding by eating one.

"I expect it to be a hostile environment and a hostile crowd," Fisch said, a previous visitor in 2021 with Arizona, when he lost to the third-ranked Ducks 41-19. "When you bring the rival to the other team's stadium, I would expect it to be a little nasty."

Autzen Stadium, now in its 57th year, has been updated several times. / Dan Raley

Autzen is named for an Oregon family that made its millions in the lumber world and donated some of them for the construction of the stadium, well before NIKE founder Phil Knight opened up his checkbook to create the rest of this college football Disneyland. It's not widely revealed that the senior Autzen was an Oregon State grad.

The three largest crowds to watch a football game in Autzen are 60,129 who showed up to see the Ducks beat Ohio State 32-31 in mid-October; 60,055 who witnessed a 41-27 win over Arizona State in 2011; and 60,017 who attended Oregon's 53-16 manhandling of the Huskies in 2011.

Once the stadium opened, replacing Hayward Field, which had fallen into disrepair and was turned into the school's track facility -- and the reason why Oregon chose to play so many rivalry games in Portland -- the Ducks won their first four outings against the Huskies in the new digs.

HUSKY WINS AT AUTZEN STADIUM
1975, UW 27, Oregon 17	In his first season, Don James posted UW's first Autzen win, 8 years after it opened.
1977, UW 54, Oregon 0	Huskies had 474 yards of total offense to Oregon's 97.
1979, UW 21, Oregon 17	Mark Lee returned a punt 53 yards for a score with 1:59 left to shock the locals.
1981, UW 17, Oregon 3	Vince Newsome returned a blocked punt 15 yards for an opening TD.
1983, UW 32, Oregon 3	Jeff Jaeger kicked four field goals, including a 52-yarder, to decide this one.
1985, UW 19, Oregon 13	Jaeger kicked another four field goals at Autzen to beat the Ducks.
1990, UW 38, Oregon 17	Greg Lewis broke a 53-yard TD run in the first quarter, finished with career-best 169.
1992, UW 24, Oregon 3	In his first start in two years, Mark Brunell ran for a TD and threw for one.
1996, UW 33, Oregon 14	Corey Dillon rushed for 259 yards and 3 touchdowns.
2002, UW 42, Oregon 14	Reggie Williams caught 14 passes for 198 yards and TDs of 23, 47 and 41 yards.
2016, UW 70, Oregon 21	Myles Gaskin rushed for 197 yards and Jake Browning threw 6 TD passes.
2022, UW 37, Oregon 34	Peyton Henry kicked a game-winning 43-yard field goal with 51 seconds left.

In his first season as the UW football coach in 1975, eight years after the place opened, Don James made the Huskies a first-time winner at Autzen, coming away with a 27-17 victory. A quarterback named Warren Moon scored two touchdowns on short runs. Animal House was still three years away from being made.

James, in fact, won his first six visits to Autzen, or half of the entire Husky total that stands today. The legendary leader finished with eight wins in 10 tries at this often remodeled stadium before he stepped down following the 1992 season.

Oregon finally made it near impossible for the UW to win there by claiming 10 of the next 12 games through the 2014 season as it became a regional power. The Huskies tried to get it back all at once in 2016 by taking a 70-21 victory at Autzen with Jake Browning throwing six touchdown passes and memorably wagging a finger as he scored on a short run.

Counting that one, the UW actually has captured two of its last three visits to this Duck den, winning 37-34 in 2022 on Peyton Henry's late field goal.

Lately, it's been the Huskies' time to shout, gloat, let out a deep breath.

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