Inside The Huskies

LA Bowl Match-Up With Boise State Appears Likely for UW

If so, the two teams would play in a week in SoFi Stadium on the first day of bowl games.
Dan Raley|
Ja'Lynn Polk gets behind the Boise State secondary for a TD catch in 2023.
Ja'Lynn Polk gets behind the Boise State secondary for a TD catch in 2023. | Skylar Lin Visuals

Jedd Fisch closed out his recruiting news conference on Wednesday afternoon by saying he expected his University of Washington football team to face the Mountain West champion in its bowl game.

The Husky coach said his staff was preparing to face either Boise State or UNLV in the LA Bowl, with his coaching staff going over scouting reports for each potential opponent.

Following the Broncos' 38-21 victory on Friday night, all indications are the Huskies (8-4 overall, 5-4 Big Ten) and Boise State will resume a connection that goes back nearly two decades in which they've played each other and swapped coaches and players throughout the years.

On3's football insider Brett McMurphy already has posted online that the postseason match-up has been confirmed to him.

If it holds true when pairings are officially announced on Sunday, the UW and Boise State (9-4 overall, 6-2 conference) will play each other next Saturday -- on the first day of bowl games -- at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, with kickoff at 5 p.m. ABC will televise the match-up.

This will mark the earliest the UW has ever appeared in a bowl game, with the Huskies previously taking on Tulane in the 1987 Independence Bowl in Shreveport, Louisiana, on Dec. 19 back then and winning 24-12.

The Huskies and Boise State have met six times, with the UW winning four of those games.

Their first meeting came in in 2007 during the woebegone Tyrone Willingham coaching era and the UW came up with one of the coach's rare highlights in Montlake, a 24-10 victory over the Chris Petersen-led Broncos at Husky Stadium. Jake Locker was a freshman quarterback who ran for 84 yards and a touchdown and threw for another.

Five years later, the schools met again in the Las Vegas Bowl and Peterson's Broncos emerged with a 28-26 win. Bishop Sankey rushed for 205 yards and a score for the UW, but Boise State emerged with the win following a 27-yard field goal with 1:15 left to play.

In 2013, the Huskies put a 38-6 beating on Petersen and his team -- and then hired him after the season ended when then-UW coach Steve Sarkisian went to USC. The teams played in a newly remodeled Husky Stadium and Sankey got loose for 161 yards rushing and 2 touchdowns.

With Petersen in his second UW season, the Huskies made their only game appearance in Boise and were upset 16-13. They fell behind 16-0 at half and Jake Browning, making his first start as a freshman quarterback, couldn't rescue his team.

Jimmy Lake and Chris Petersen hold up the 2019 Las Vegas Bowl trophy and pass the Husky coaching torch.
Jimmy Lake and Chris Petersen hold up the 2019 Las Vegas Bowl trophy and pass the Husky coaching torch. | Stephen R. Sylvanie-Imagn Images

In 2019, the teams held a Vegas Bowl rematch while Petersen coached his final UW game before stepping down, and the Huskies sent him out with a 38-7 victory. Quarterback Jacob Eason and running back Richard Newton threw TD passes to get the rout going.

The most recent UW-Boise State game came two years ago, when a Kalen DeBoer-coached Husky team opened the 2023 season with a lopsided 56-19 victory over the Broncos on their way to 14 consecutive wins before a loss in College Football Playoff title game.

This one would be a star-studded match-up of Heisman Trophy runner-ups in 2023 and '24, with UW quarterback Michael Penix Jr. throwing for 450 yards and 5 touchdowns and Boise State running back Ashton Jeanty showing off his elusiveness with 2 touchdowns, including a 50-yard scoring reception.

As these two teams presumably line up again, the crossover connections are non-existent, with no coaches or players having been on both sides. Defensive back Davon Banks was a former Husky playing for the Broncos this season, but he was dropped from the team last month.

Previously, the Broncos had supplied the UW with football coaches in Pete Kwiatkowski, Bob Gregory, Keith Bonapha, Lee Marks, Julius Brown, Jonathan Smith, Brent Pease, Jeff Choate, Chris Strausser, Bush Hamdan, Scott Huff, Lake and Petersen.

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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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