UW Winning Streak Will Live to See Another Season

At 20 in a row, the Huskies have the second longest in school annals, in the nation.

Huskies fans rush the field to to share in the UW's 27-17 victory over Michigan. / Joe Nicholson-Imagn Images

It's Saturday and Husky Stadium is quiet, empty, not threatening anyone. The unbeaten and No. 1-ranked Oregon Ducks profusely are thanking the schedule-makers for making this a bye week and forcing the University of Washington football team to come to Eugene and play next weekend so they don't have to wonder if they would have made it out alive.

As the equipment guys begin putting things in storage with this football season winding down in Montlake, one thing that's been carefully wrapped, packed away and handled with the most care is the Huskies' 20-game home winning streak.

It's a great source of pride for a program that lost nearly everything else over the past year -- its head coach, Heisman Trophy runner-up quarterback, the nation's top offensive line, every starter except Alphonzo Tuputala and a veteran persona as one of the college game's oldest teams.

Yet that streak -- the longest in the country to Georgia's 28 wins in a row -- somehow survived everything people threw at it, with teams such as Michigan, USC and UCLA coming to Husky Stadium bent on ending it.

To be 6-0 at home, a 20-game win streak, it's pretty amazing," Fisch said. "[I'm] ooking forward to taking that win streak into next season, and we certainly will. And we'll certainly continue on playing at that level at home."

The Huskies still have to go to Oregon and try to win their first road game of the season, and then off to a bowl game at a neutral site, but they don't have to worry about defending the honor of the second-longest win streak in school annals for another 10-plus months. They more than likely miss it.

However, this current winning streak might be far more impressive than the longstanding program standard, which is 31 in a row for Gil Dobie-coached teams in 1910-14, yet largely built against high school, athletic club and military opponents.

THE MODERN-DAY MONTLAKE STREAK
1. UW 45, Kent State 20 (2022)	Don James' teams went head to head to kick off the streak.
2. UW 52, Portland State 6 (2022)	Center D'Angalo Titialii lost the second game of the streak and helped win the last six games of it
3. UW 39, Michigan State 28 (2022)	The crowd rushed the field after beating the Big Ten.
4. UW 40, Stanford 22 (2022)	David Shaw's last game against UW.
5. UW 49, Arizona 39 (2022)	Fisch contributed win No. 5 to the streak he's now trying maintain.
6. UW 24, Oregon State 21 (2022)	The Huskies won this one with 8 seconds left.
7. UW 54, Colorado 7 (2022)	This was pre-Deion Sanders.
8. UW 56,, Boise State 19 (2023)	Ashton Jeanty's 2 TDs were not nearly enough to break the streak.
9. UW 43, Tulsa 10 (2023)	Steve Largent's alma mater supplied win No. 9 of the streak.
10. UW 59, California 32 (2023)	Jackson Sirmon played in the last Husky Stadium loss and on the other side of the UW's 10th win in the streak.
11. UW 36, Oregon 33 (2023)	Wide right, wide right, wide right.
12. UW 15, Arizona State 7 (2023)	Mish Powell had the longest Husky play of the streak, going 89 yards with a pick-6.
13. UW 35, Utah 28 (2023)	Huskies trailed 28-24 at halftime.
14. UW 24, Washington State 21 (2023)	The Huskies won this one on the final play with all zeroes showing.
15. UW 35, Weber State 3 (2024)	UW put up a W on a different WSU.
16. UW 30, Eastern Michigan 9 (2024)	One of three different Michigan teams involved in the streak.
17. UW 24, Northwestern 5 (2024)	First game as a Big Ten Conference member.
18. UW 27, Michigan 17 (2024)	Payback for the national championship game loss.
19. UW 26, USC 21 (2024)	Lincoln Riley's first visit to Husky Stadium wasn't memorable.
20. UW 31, UCLA 19 (2024)	The Huskies beat Ethan Garbers, who left tthe UW two years before the streak began.

The Huskies next will put their streak up against UC Davis (9-2 this season) next Aug. 30 and maybe Colorado State (currently 7-3) on Sept. 6, which means they'll have to work harder than they've had to in recent non-conference outings to remain unscathed.

If they can get past those two, they'll have to contend with the likes of Ohio State, Oregon, Illinois, Purdue and Rutgers, in no particular order determined just yet, as the next round of Big Ten visitors who will enter Husky Stadium, which is significantly more challenging than the mostly rebuilding conference teams that graced the place with their presence over the past three months.

The Huskies haven't lost at home since Nov. 26, 2021, when Bob Gregory was the interim coach, then freshman Sam Huard was the starting quarterback for a day and two-time Super Bowl-winning cornerback Trent McDuffie was the defensive leader in a 40-13 loss to Washington State in the Apple Cup.

That was so long ago, Huard could graduate right now if he wanted at Utah, his second stop since leaving the UW; Gregory is at Stanford now after spending time at Oregon; McDuffie is eyeing a third championship ring after he had nothing to show for his last UW game, and the Huskies have won 31 games overall over three seasons since their house was broken into and everything was thrown around and trashed.

"It hasn't even sunk in yet, to be honest, but I'm always grateful and happy, not just for the guys here, but the guys who put in time in my past teammates who aren't here," said senior UW linebacker Alphonzo Tuputala, the only one to start all 20 victorious games. "That's really special for me."

Tuputala, in a way, is like a heavyweight boxer who retired unbeaten.

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