Huskies Take Big Step with Big Ten Football Membership

fThe UW has played these teams for nearly nine decades and won its fair share.

Carson Bruener (42) and Bralen Trice (8) converge on Michigan running back Blake Corum. / Skylar Lin Visuals

Eighty-eight years ago, the University of Washington football team braced for its first game against a Big Ten opponent, which happened to be America's best team for multiple seasons, and naturally this proved to be a challenge.

In September 1936 -- shortly after a UW rowing shell captured a gold medal in the Berlin Olympics in front of Hitler and ultimately became the novel and cinematic "Boys in the Boat" -- the powerful Minnesota Gophers traveled to Husky Stadium seeking a third consecutive national championship and holding a 17-game winning streak.

The Huskies, who were competitive enough to be headed to the Rose Bowl that season, muffed a fourth-quarter punt that led to a deciding touchdown and lost 14-7.

This was the beginning of a lengthy college football relationship that, after 89 non-conference games, has led to full-fledged Big Ten membership for the Huskies, who dive in by hosting Northwestern on Saturday at 4 p.m.

"It's definitely exciting moving to the Big Ten," sixth-year UW senior safety Kam Fabiculanan said. "Just want to show that the teams in the West aren't the stereotype of what they say."

The Huskies like to think, after those humble beginnings, that they have grown into a football equal to these Midwest mainstays, having compiled a 46-42-1 record against teams when holding a Big Ten membership.

They have gone through a long period of repeatedly getting bullied -- the Huskies lost badly to Michigan State, Michigan and Ohio State by a combined 213-32 to open the 1969 season -- to developing their own confidence and swagger against the likes of these powerhouse teams from Ann Arbor and Columbus.

The beginning of the swashbuckling Sonny Sixkiller era was launched by an electrifying 42-16 victory over Michigan State and its well-known coach Duffy Daugherty. Just a sophomore and a first-time varsity player at the time, Sixkiller threw a 59-yard touchdown pass on his first series to get everything going.

UW VS. BIG TEN (46-42-1)	MOST COMPELLING WIN
Illinois (7-4 Big Ten)	1956, UW 28-13
Indiana (1-2 Big Ten)	2003, UW 38-13
Iowa (3-3 Big Ten)	1991 Rose Bowl, UW 46-34
Maryland (0-0 Big Ten, 1-0 overall)	1982 Aloha Bowl, UW 21-20
Michigan (5-9 Big Ten)	1992 Rose Bowl, UW 34-14
Michigan State (4-1 Big Ten)	1970, UW 42-16
Minnesota (7-10 Big Ten)	1961 Rose Bowl, UW 17-7
Nebraska (0-1 Big Ten, 4-5-1 overall)	1991, UW 36-21
Northwestern (3-0 Big Ten)	1980, UW 45-7
Ohio State (3-9 Big Ten)	1986, UW 40-7
Oregon (0-0 Big Ten, 63-48-5 overall)	2023 Pac-12 Championship, UW 34-31
Penn State (0-1 Big Ten, 0-3 overall)	N/A
Purdue (7-2-1 Big Ten)	2000 Rose Bowl, UW 34-24
Rutgers (2-0 Big Ten)	2016, UW 48-13
USC (0-0 Big Ten, 31-52-4 overall)	1980, UW 20-10
UCLA (0-0 Big Ten, 32-42-2 overall)	1970, UW 61-20
Wisconsin (4-0 Big Ten )	1960 Rose Bowl, UW 44-8
*records in parentheses

Yet the rout began long before in pregame warm-ups when Sixkiller told the visiting Spartans coach what was on his mind in an unfiltered manner.

"I remember standing on the field looking at the sunshine and the lake, and Duffy Daugherty ran by in warm-ups with all that gray hair," Sixkiller said. "I yelled, 'Duffy, you're going down today! We're going to kick your butt!' I might have had a bad word in there, but I don't remember."

Sixiller's brash attitude toward the Big Ten was catching. Sixteen years later, then-UW defensive coordinator and later head coach Jim Lambright led the players out of the tunnel at Husky Stadium to face Ohio State in such a colorful manner that offensive tackle Adam Cooney never forgot what was said that day.

"There they are, men! There they are!" Lambright screamed out, according to Cooney. "Pick one out and kick his mother-bleeping bleep!"

Those words had lasting impact. That afternoon, the Huskies humiliated the Buckeyes 40-7 with a full house in Montlake and a CBS-TV national audience watching.

The Huskies today claim a pair of national championships both capped off by decisive victories over Big Ten opponents in the Rose Bowl. In 1961, the UW beat No. 1-ranked Minnesota 17-7 to complete a 10-1 season and was elevated to the top spot in one of the postseason polls. Thirty-two years later, a Don James team manhandled Michigan 34-14 on New Year's Day in Pasadena to complete a perfect 12-0 season and clinch a national title in the final coaches poll.

Michigan State tight end Tyneil Hopper (23) gets tackled by Dyson McCutcheon (21) and Jacob Bandes (55) in 2023 in East Lansing. / Dale Young-Imagn Images

The annual Rose Bowl match-up played between the top teams of the Pac-12 and the Big Ten, which lasted nearly three quarters of a century and came to an end with this latest round of college football realignment, greatly favored the Huskies. They won seven of the 11 showcase games against Big Ten teams they will now call fellow members, beginning on Saturday.

"I think that's super cool we get chance to open up Big Ten play in our stadium," Husky coach Jedd Fisch said this week. "It should be a beautiful 65-degree day and there's nothing cooler than that."

Or, in the words of Lambright, one of Fisch's long-ago predecessors, pick one out someone in a visiting jersey and, well, show them around Montlake.

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