Wet and Wild: Huskies' 5 Greatest Weather-Related Wins Over USC

The UW always has used the November elements to its great advantage against the Trojans.

JIm Owens and John McKay meet in a wet and cold Husky Stadium. / Dan Raley

For Saturday's USC-Washington football game, the weather forecast calls for overcast skies, with rain showers early in the day and winds up to 10 miles per hour.

Who's kidding who?

Once the Trojans step onto Husky Stadium's artificial playing surface, they might as well expect someone to throw a switch, tornadoes to magically appear over Lake Washington and Dorothy's windswept house to come crashing down at midfield.

More than anyone, this corner of the country likes to punish USC and its sun-loving football players with a climatic Armageddon for three hours every decade or so. The Trojans get drenched as if they were going through a car wash with the top down, unnerved as they were surrounded by downed power lines on all sides and beaten no matter how much better they are than the Huskies on any given day.

The Northwest weather patterns can be like Greek mythology -- with the Men of Troy trying to find a way to get down off the top of Mount Rainier in a white-out.

"We've been reading all week about it being 12 below up here," USC coach John Robinson said upon arrival in Seattle in 1977.

With local meteorologists suggesting once more that the Trojans could find themselves in uncomfortable if not impossible playing conditions, we've picked out five previous UW victories in this series dating back 101 years that were most aided by the Gods above.

Those meetings all played out in November and are considered part of Husky football lore and became moments so crushing to the USC spirit that many of the affected players are still in therapy. Close your eyes and think of an airplane ride with the worst turbulence ever and your seat belt about to pop.

"There's Dawg weather, right," first-year UW coach Jedd Fisch said this week, having boned up on the subject. "We love it. That's what we refer to it here: We say hopefully Dawg weather is coming."

1. Nov. 14, 1981, UW 13, USC 3 -- The elements were so brutal for this one the 520 floating bridge was shut down for 11 hours, people were advised to cross the I-90 bridge with caution, the ferries stopped running after the Walla Walla boat nearly tipped over, three houseboats broke free from their moorings and were sent adrift, trees toppled everywhere in the area, 200,000 homes were left without power and 13,000 people from an expected sellout crowd of 60,000 never made it to the stadium.

Rain fell throughout the first half and wind gusts blew in three different directions at Husky Stadium following halftime, where the score stood 3-3. The teams completed only four passes each for the entire game. This outcome was decided by Chuck Nelson's 46-yard field goal with 2:19 left to play and enhanced by freshman linebacker Fred Smalls' loose-ball touchdown recovery in the end zone after Nelson's ensuing kickoff bounced over the head of USC return-man Fred Crutcher and a mad scramble ensued. It matter little that the Trojans' great Marcus Allen rushed for 155 yards to become the first NCAA player to ever run for 2,000 yards in a season.

"It was not a nice day," said Trojans' coach John Robinson, whose third-ranked team watched helplesssly as the unranked Huskies used this win to advance to the Rose Bowl.

2. Nov. 12, 1977, UW 28, USC 10 -- The 14th-ranked Trojans again were reduced bumbling players by the challenging Seattle environment as they fumbled the ball away three times, served up three interceptions and had two punts blocked.

The game began with dark clouds overhead, had the skies erupt with pelting rain and gusting wind in the third quarter and ended in the darkness and bitter cold. When the weather changed for the worse, the Huskies enlarged their 7-3 halftime lead with three more touchdowns, the last coming on quarerback Warren Moon's 71-yard scoring dash in the final minute.

"When you play in the rain, you have to be cautious," USC cornerback Ricky Odom explained, with the wet stuff clearly in his head and leaving him unable to prevent a TD pass to Spider Gaines. "When the big play came my way, I couldn't play him as tough as I wanted to."

One of the great home wins in UW history was a windy, rainy, 13-3 victory over #3-ranked USC on Nov. 14, 1981.

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— Husky Football News (@HuskyFBNews) October 31, 2024

3. Nov. 15, 1975, UW 8, USC 7 -- Lightning ravaged Seattle all morning, striking a phone booth on nearby Capitol Hill and injuring and sending a man to Harborview Medical Center. A downtown trolley car similarly was struck by a sizzling bolt. Power lines went down all over the area. The Tacoma Narrows bridge was closed by the high winds.

In the ensuing monsoon, Don James' first UW football team overcame a 7-0 halftime deficit by scoring all of its points in the fourth quarter on a safety after tackling Trojans punter Glen Walker in the end zone when he couldn't handle a low snap and in having tailback Greg Martin run 12 yards for a late score, with a two-point conversion pass batted down. The Huskies still needed Spider Gaines to block a field-goal attempt with 3:22 left to play.

The Trojans' legendary coach John McKay, who had announced his retirement three weeks earlier, was walking up the tunnel after the game when he turned to UW kicker Steve Robbins and remarked, "I'm getting out of this city -- I'm going to Florida." Robbins didn't realize he was getting a news exclusive. Not long after that , McKay was hired to coach the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

4. Nov. 2, 1963, UW 22, USC 7 -- This game was played in a steady rain, with Husky Stadium's grass field turning into a mud bog at midfield. A newspaper headline declared, "Take Your Rain Gear." USC conducted its Friday walk-through inside Hec Edmundson Pavilion.

The Huskies didn't waste any time getting started causing havoc in the steady drizzle, with Koll Hagen and Rick Redman breaking through on the opening series to block a USC punt and have teammate Mike Briggs recover it for touchdown. Just 2:43 had come off the clock.

USC's exceptional quarterback Pete Beathard, who had led the Trojans to a national championship the year before, never did get used to the stormy conditions that day, completing just 7 of 13 passes for 75 yards and leaving the game early with a back injury.

"I've never passed in this kind of weather," Beathard said in the locker room afterward.

5. Nov. 16, 1985, UW 20, USC 17 -- This one was more cold than wet, with temperatures barely peeking over 40 degrees, but a light drizzle fell to really keep the fair-weather Trojans honest. However, it was the Huskies who had trouble with the elements early, losing a pair of first-quarter fumbles to fall behind 10-0.

However, the UW relied on a Northwest-raised quarterback in Cnris Chandler, a sophomore making his first college start in place of an injured Hugh Millen, to rescue this one. He led the Huskies on four scoring drives, the last covering 98 yards and capping off with a game-winning, 13-yard TD pass to Lonzel Hill with 56 seconds left to play. It was set up by a USC fumble near the goal line, with cold hands getting in the way of victory.

Chandler, who went on to considerable NFL success in warm-weather cities, didn't let the Northwest cold bother him, though the forecast called for a possible mix of sleet and snow. He just had to get his head straight after taking an early hit in the game that left him flat on his back. He didn't know fog was in the forecast that day.

"I could see stars," he said after the game, speaking from the warmth of the Husky locker room. "It was foggy for me and it wasn't until we got to midfield that I felt all right."

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