Tale of 2 QBs Who Know Each Other Well When UW Hosts Northwestern

Will Rogers and Mike Wright have been opponents, teammates and now opponents again.

Will Rogers calls the play in the opener against Weber State. / Skylar Lin Visuals

The Washington and Northwestern football teams haven't faced each other for 40 years, but some of the players who will be on opposing sides for Saturday afternoon's game at Husky Stadium know each other well.

Take quarterbacks Will Rogers of the Huskies and Mike Wright of the Wildcats, for instance.

Last year, they were teammates at Mississippi State, 1-2 on the depth chart as signal-callers for the SEC team, before Wright eventually replaced an injured Rogers as the Bulldogs starter for three midseason outings.

For a while, it looked as if these two quarterbcks would go head to head this coming weekend in Montlake, and that still could happen, yet the 6-foot-4, 195-pound Wright from Atlanta recently was demoted from Northwestern starter to back-up and likely will be watching everything unfold in the Huskies' inaugural Big Ten game as a conference member.

Northwestern quarterback Mike Wright played with Will Rogers at Mississippi State in 2023. / David Banks-Imagn Images

A year ago, Rogers started the first six games for Mississippi State, with the Bulldogs going 3-3 --which counted a 31-24 overtime win over Arizona and Jedd Fisch -- before he injured a shoulder against Western Michigan and missed four outings.

Enter Wright, who opened three Mississippi State football offerings, beating Arkansas 7-3 and losing to Auburn 27-13 and Kentucky 24-3 in 2023, before he gave way to Chris Parsons, who started once before Rogers was cleared to return.

Once a taxing 5-7 season concluded in Starkville, Rogers transferred to the UW and Wright to Northwestern.

While Rogers is the Husky starter -- completing 64 of 83 passes for 825 yards and 6 TDs, or 77.1 percent of his throws -- Wright quarterbacked Northwestern to a 13-6 victory over Miami of Ohio and lost to Duke 26-20 in overtime, and he was replaced as the No. 1 guy by sophomore Jack Lausch, who was at the controls for a 31-7 win over Eastern Illinois last weekend. Wright was limited to coming off the bench and throwing one ball for a 20-yard completion.

Rogers and Wright, however, have faced each other as opposing starting quarterbacks before.

Demonstrating how transient and intertwined college football has become these days, Wright was the starting quarterback for Vanderbilt in 2021 when the Commodores hosted Mississippi State and Rogers in an SEC game in Nashville. Rogers completed 41 of 57 passes for 384 yards and 4 touchdowns for his then Mike Leach-coached team and won 41-6.

These quarterbacks are fairly seasoned players now with their roadmap football careers. Rogers has played in 46 games and started 43 in his career at two schools, while Wright has appeared in 36 outings and opened 16 for three teams.

So when Northwestern shows up to play the UW this weekend, maybe these two quarterbacks can introduce everyone around.

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