Huskies Will Practice at Night to Prepare for Rutgers

Rutgers already has been installed as a 2.5-point favorite for Friday's game.

Dan Raley | Sep 22, 2024

A Huskies fan holds up a sign signifying the UW's entry into Big Ten Conference play. / Joe Nicholson-Imagn Images

Facing a short week and a cross country trek to New Jersey, the University of Washington football team will return to the practice field on Monday night -- normally a day of rest -- to simulate conditions for Friday night's game against Rutgers.

Husky coach Jedd Fisch, a New Jersey native himself, will bring his players together for a 7 p..m. workout to prepare for a Big Ten game that will be played in Piscataway at 8 p.m. ET and broadcast nationally by FOX.

"[We'll] try to get ready for the night-time mentality, try to get some under-the-lights work," Fisch said following Saturday nigiht's 24-5 victory over Northwestern at Husky Stadium.

The Huskies will practice Monday through Wednesday and fly to the East Coast on Thursday, arriving in New Jersey at 5 p.m. local time.

With the Scarlet Knights off to a 3-0 start and installed as an early 2.5-point favorite, Rutgers is promoting this match-up as one of its best home-game environments in more than a decade. School officials have called for a "Black Out" at the game, where the home fans wear all-black clothing to 52,454 SHI Stadium, which will host a pregame light and fireworks show. Rutgers players likewise will don all-black uniforms.

"We've got a great challenge ahead of us going across the country to play Rutgers," Fisch said. "They're going to have a great atmosphere."

Fisch grew up 35 miles north of Rutgers in East Hanover Township, where he reportedly was an all-state tennis player in high school, but didn't play football, and later graduated from the University of Florida.

Huskies defensive coordinator Steve Belichick played four years of lacrosse at Rutgers before spending the 2011 season as a walk-on snapper for a 9-4 Scarlet Knights football team that beat Iowa State in the Pinstripe Bowl at Yankee Stadium in New York. Belichick didn't appear in any games.

The Huskies and Rutgers have played twice before, with the UW taking a 48-13 victory in Seattle in 2016 and and a 30-14 win the following season on the road, with the previous New Jersey game likewise held on a Friday night.

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

Published Sep 22, 2024

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.