Washington-Oregon Rivalry Game is Unrivaled for Its Incivility
The USC Trojans used to be everyone's most hated college football opponent out West. They won everything and rubbed your face in it. They had an overabundance of talent, arrogance, O.J., that aggravating song.
The men of Troy are such old news now. Total afterthought. So unimportant to the bigger scheme of things pigskin in the Pac-12 and the Pacific time zone.
Nothing beats a more angst-filled football afternoon than when Washington and Oregon get together, call out each other's inadequacies and do everything possible to gloat when someone gets the upper hand.
This has to be one of the most temperamental cross-state rivalries — rather than in-state, which is a whole different beast — ranking right up there with Texas-Oklahoma, Ohio State-Michigan and Georgia-Florida.
Yet for pure dislike, this Northwest knucklehead fest exceeds those others.
This yearly game has left newcomers to it such as Keith Bhonapha, who arrived in 2014 with Chris Petersen as the UW running-backs coach, tongue-tied when cautiously trying to describe what goes on.
"We actually got to the stadium and you couldn't just ... it was hard to ... you couldn't even ... I guess going into it ... let me go back," Bhonapha said, searching and searching for the right words. "You couldn't imagine how just violent and passionate the rivalry was between the fans, as you're coming onto the field, getting ready for warmups, as you're riding on the bus, and then over the course of time, you just sort of learn."
Here's part of the lesson plan. Oregon fans have thrown dog biscuits at the players and team followers. UW loyalists have stuffed little yellow plastic duck toys in every stadium urinal on Saturdays. Both sides have printed up really obscene signs and T-shirts. Yet that's tame stuff.
Ah, for the ultimate show of college football gamesmanship or downright pettiness between the schools in this annual neighborhood barbecue, sporting archeologists have to go back 47 and 48 years and examine the series.
No place in college football does what these two did to each other back in the Animal House 1970s.
In 1973, Oregon hosted the Jim Owens-coached Huskies in Eugene and laid a messy 54-0 lipstick kiss on the visitors from Seattle. There was no air of superiority surrounding this particular social engagement either. Both teams were 1-5 at kickoff. The Ducks just saw an opportune time to kick a Dawg while it was really down and left it unrecognizable.
Twelve months later, the UW repaid the favor in Seattle and skinned all the feathers off the Ducks, winning 66-0. Each team was 2-4 coming in. This was good old-fashioned payback. The only apology served up for this 60 minutes of football mayhem came from Owens — to his starting quarterback Chris Rowland.
Purposely trying to run up the score greater than 54-0, Owens kept the pass-minded Rowland, who was running the option at the time with a fair amount of success, in the game late until he broke his ankle and that ended his season.
"I remember Jim Owens coming into my hospital room and he apologized with tears in his eyes," Rowland said.
None of those aforementioned cross-state rivalries have come within even several touchdowns of a 120-point swing over a year's time just to send a message on the football field.
Owens and the Oregon coaches back then turned this series more punishing on the field than at any other time before it. Mind games were sure to follow.
Next up, the Don James-coached Huskies demoralized the Ducks in 15 of 18 games to create the first real air of superiority between the schools. People in Seattle began slamming the opposing city and the other educational opportunity as inferior, with the latter something UW coach Jimmy Lake amazingly rekindled this week, bringing a stinging rebuke from Oregon president Michael Schill.
Rich Brooks, Mike Bellotti and Chip Kelly kindly returned the favor of acting superior by regularly defeating the UW and going to the Rose Bowl. Oregon won 12 consecutive games through 2015 before the Huskies pushed back with a 70-21 whipping in Eugene. The Ducks have captured the last two outings, bringing the series to 60-47-5, creeping ever closer in wins.
"Seeing Washington get whupped by Oregon every year wasn't great, I guess," Husky freshman linebacker Carson Bruener said of growing up with the series. "Finally we snapped that streak. I think it was after that game, after we beat them 70-21 or something like that, I definitely knew that these two teams definitely hate each other."
No one was more disappointed than the two fan bases when the pandemic forced cancellation of last December's game at Oregon. Another chance for either side to go for 54 or 66 or even 70 points was squandered.
It's a football right of passion that can go so wrong at times. Still, it's a game that can be as enjoyable as it is rude once it's under way. Just ask the Husky running-backs coach.
"I will say this, as much as people try to make it about just hate and all that other stuff, I think one thing is it's so cool being part of this opportunity as a coach and I think it's a cool opportunity for the players," Bhonapha said. "This is really what college football is all about."
Yes, if you mix in some black eyes, broken ankles, nonstop obscenities, chewed-up dog biscuits and peed-on duck toys, it's a wholesome time all around.
Editor's note: Monte Enbysk, a UO grad, and Dan Raley, the son of a UW rower, are working together to produce the consummate book on the Huskies-Ducks football rivalry. Feel free to offer any stories or anecdotes to danraley580@gmail.com or on the Facebook comment thread to this story.
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