Tulsa Is Sure Thing as UW Non-League Foe, But Anything Goes Thereafter

Scheduling will get complicated with the Huskies joining the Big Ten.

This much is known: Tulsa will be the last non-conference opponent to travel to Husky Stadium to face the University of Washington football team during the Pac-12 era.

Thereafter everything gets kind of weird and travel weary.

After playing out this season, the Huskies will be put through the scheduling grinder, trying to fit into an 18-team Big Ten lineup and wondering if it should honor all of its future non-conference game contracts against a host of Big Sky teams and others.

After all, Ohio State pulled out of its home-and-home, non-league series with the UW, apparently trying to limit the number of West Coast trips it might have to take in a single season after USC and UCLA jumped to the Big Ten.

As it stands, the Huskies will draw nine Big Ten Conference games each season, an arrangement that will have them alternate five and four league home games every other season, and face three non-conference opponents.

The latter is where things get a tad complicated, which is the ongoing theme of college football these days.

Currently, the Huskies are contracted in 2024 to host Weber State from the Big Sky and Eastern Michigan, a Mid-American team that once employed UW coach Kalen DeBoer and offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb as its OC and offensive-line coach, respectively.

The UW has a non-conference game vacancy next season after Ohio State retreated and bought itself out of its contract for that 2024 game in Seattle and one in Columbus a year later, something that would have been inevitable with all of the conference team jumping.

The Huskies now are faced with the following scheduling considerations.  

Could that vacancy be filled by a continuation of the Apple Cup against Washington State, only in September? Will the Huskies feel compelled to reach out to a Utah, Oregon State, Stanford or Colorado to fill the open non-league slot with another familiar face? Will TV contracts prevent the UW from playing any future FCS opponents, insisting on only high-profile, non-league encounters for everyone?

"That will continue to develop and evolve," DeBoer said of settling on a future schedule. "There's a lot of shakeup around college football."

Prior to joining the Big Ten, DeBoer and his staff wanted to push for a possible annual non-conference game against USC or UCLA, preferably held in Los Angeles, to keep their strong recruiting footprint in place in Southern California.

"That was something I was hoping to be able to do," DeBoer said.

Now that the L.A. schools and the Huskies are all part of one big happy family as Big Ten expansionists, that sort of scheduling emphasis with the Trojans and UCLA should be automatic because they'll remain conference opponents.

Interesting is the UW's 2028 non-conference game in Husky Stadium ... against Michigan. This game was the back end of a home-and-home series, a game postponed by the COVID pandemic. 

Now it's not necessary to play that contest as a non-conference matchup, likely shorting the Huskies of a high-profile home game they deserved after they played in Ann Arbor in 2021.. Again, they'll be conference opponents whenever the future schedules dictate it.

"There's not a lot of decisions we can make right now, just because we've got to have some understanding of the Big Ten schedule and the model," DeBoer said. 

He also doesn't have an athletic director to sign off on playing any future football games, at last not yet.

The following are the contracted non-conference football games that the UW may or may not play.

---

UW NON-CONFERENCE GAMES

2024

Weber State at Washington, Aug. 31

Eastern Michigan at Washington, Sept. 9

2025

Colorado State at Washington, Aug. 30

UC Davis at Washington, Sept. 6

2026

Eastern Washington at Washington, Sept. 12 or 19

2027

Fresno State at Washington, Sept. 4

2028

Eastern Washington at Washington, Sept. 2

Michigan at Washington, Sept. 9

UNLV at Washington, Sept. 16

2029

Washington at Tennessee, Sept. 1

Boise State at Washington, Sept. 8

2030

Tennessee at Washington, Sept. 7

Hawaii at Washington, Sept. 14

 

---

Go to si.com/college/washington to read the latest Inside the Huskies stories — as soon as they’re published.

Not all stories are posted on the fan sites.

Find Inside the Huskies on Facebook by searching: Inside Huskies/FanNation at SI.com or https://www.facebook.com/dan.raley.12

Follow Dan Raley of Inside the Huskies on Twitter: @DanRaley1 or @UWFanNation or @DanRaley3

Have a question, direct message me on Facebook or Twitter.