Inside The Huskies

Will UW-Michigan State Showcase Bring Out the Reluctant Fans?

Somewhat empty stadium greeted the Huskies in first two games.

Dan Raley

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The University of Washington is like a lot of big corporations these days, trying to return to pre-pandemic days, to what was the norm. Its football fans have turned into remote employees, who much prefer to do things from home.

Or did you not see the huge gaps in seats for the Portland State game last weekend? The school announced an attendance of 57,518. That was paid tickets, not actual warm bodies. 

Husky Stadium, which has a capacity for 70,000, was no more than half full. 

Even for a Big Sky opponent, which typically has no chance of winning in Seattle — sorry, Montana — that was embarrassing when considering what was going on elsewhere around the country. Almost as mortifying as losing to the Grizzlies.

So here comes the Michigan State Spartans and a battery of ABC-TV cameras to what the UW promotes as "the greatest setting in college football."

Will the fans show up in Montlake after apparently becoming a little indifferent to college football these days?

"We talk about it all the time about making the play," wide receiver Rome Odunze said about bringing the fans out of their seats. "You guys know, it gets rocking in here. Me personally, I haven't even experienced the magnitude that it can be at."

There hasn't been a non-conference home game such as this in a dozen years, since eighth-ranked Nebraska visited in 2010, when Steve Sarkisian was the Husky coach and the Cornhuskers had a coach they could count on and were a feared opponent, and a crowd of 72,876 watched the UW get paddled 56-21.

New Husky coach Kalen DeBoer knows how full it can get, too. In 2017, he was the offensive coordinator for the Fresno State Bulldogs, who suffered a 48-16 blistering from the UW before 68,384 fans.

With the pandemic emptying out the stadium and a 4-8 team a year ago giving fans every reason not to come back, DeBoer understands the Huskies have to bring them back with their positive image and scoreboard results.

"We got to do our part as a team to make it exciting and to make it fun to come out on Saturdays and watch us play, and we're working hard to do that," the coach said. "The other thing is just trying to show who our guys are, and realize that these are not just special players but people you want to root for and are fun to watch, and they have a fun time playing. 

"We're building into a team and there's not a lot of me-first guys anymore on this football team."

It's admittedly a tough sell for the Huskies with a rebuilding or reconfiguring team that truly won't be tested until Michigan State steps onto the field and matches up with them.

There's also plenty of competition right now for the Seattle sports fan's attention. The Mariners are in a pennant race. The Seahawks just won on Monday Night Football. Even the Sounders have a strong fan base coming off a recent title run.

With realignment creating a college football caste system and product presentation becoming more important than ever, the Huskies need more fannies in the seats to return to winning ways. Or vice versa, which is win to get them there.

"When the stadium's rocking, and I've been on the wrong sideline and know what that's like," DeBoer said, "it's just trying to get a snap off and how loud it can be and how much of a problem that is when you're an opposing offense in this stadium. Everything is so much harder when it's loud."

Kickoff is 4:30 p.m. for this UW-Michigan State game. The weather is supposed to be a fairly cool yet comfortable 65 degrees for a late fall afternoon showdown. Granted, traffic will be horrific with I-405, I-90 and I-5 shutdowns or construction limitations. 

That said, DeBoer made a public plea for fans to come out and see what his team is all about as the Huskies get set to play the third game of his coaching tenure in Seattle, and the first big-name opponent.

"We have the motto "No Limits" for our team," the first-year coach said. "I guess the limit would be capacity. I would just challenge the fan base, Husky Nation, to let's not have any limits to what it can be this season.

"Let's not sit around and wait to see what will happen. Let's put the pedal down and go get this."

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Dan Raley
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.

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