TR: Ducks-Dawgs, 10-20-07

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2007
HUSKY STADIUM AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

Yesterday, I attended my fourth Washington Husky game of the season, a 55-31 defeat at the hands of the Oregon Ducks.

· The often-ugly rivalry between Oregon and Washington began in the fall of 1948. That year, both Cal and Oregon had gone unbeaten in Pacific Coast Conference play, and it was decided that the presidents of the universities would vote on who would go to the Rose Bowl. It was suspected that the vote would be split between the California schools and the Northwest schools. As it turned out, UW voted for Cal instead of Oregon, sending the Bears to Pasadena, where they would lose 20-10 to Northwestern. Ten years later, the PCC dissolved in a slush fund scandal, and the big schools of the West Coast (Cal, Stanford, USC, UCLA, and UDub) voted the smaller Northwest schools out of their new AAWU, but reneged during the ‘60s and became the Pac-8, and later the Pac-10.

· This political underhandedness has translated to the gridiron over the years. Washington leads the series 58-37-5, and dancing on the home team’s midfield logo (or worse) was often commonplace. There was a period between 1924 and 1967 where UDub refused to go to Eugene, playing at Portland instead. In 1973, Oregon smoked the Dawgs 58-0 at Eugene. This was followed in 1974 by the Ducks getting roasted 66-0 in Seattle. Due to scheduling quirks, only one of the last 6 meetings has been in Seattle, and three straight have been in Eugene…until yesterday.

· Weather was typical Seattle football weather: rain and cold wind off Lake Washington. Husky Stadium is a hulking behemoth on the shore of the lake, but it’s showing it’s age (1920) in some elements, and there is a lot of debate as to what to do with it, either renovate it, wipe it out and rebuild it, or (GASP) move to Seahawk Stadium downtown. That’s enough material for its own column, and I will treat it as such.

· Tailgating around the place is not unlike most college tailgates. It’s very picturesque to see al the boats out on Union Bay that have anchored there and are drinking and carousing before the game, particularly on a day when the weather is clear (i.e. against Boise State back in September). Several waterfront restaurants, the most notable of which is Ivar’s Salmon House, run special gameday charters to Husky Stadium that include pre-sailing buffets. On land, the E-1 and E-12 lots, immediately to the north and south of the athletic facilities, is where most of the tailgating takes place. Seattle has an ordinance against any open containers, so everything must be poured into plastic cups prior to consumption.

· I went into Husky Stadium anticipating coming back to the Gopher Hole and posting something to the effect of “UO’s uniforms are even uglier in the flesh than they are on TV.” Instead, Oregon actually came out with respectable-looking all-white uniforms.

· The same cannot be said for the Oregon Marching Band. The OMB has, without question, the ugliest marching band uniforms of any BCS-conference marching band I’ve seen. In fact, what they wore to Husky Stadium yesterday was so ugly that Google couldn’t even find an image of it. The Oregon Marching Band’s website hasn’t been updated since at least 2006. The band did a short pre-game on-field show, and the crowd booed vehemently the whole time. As for their marching style, they behave a lot more like a drum and bugle corps than a traditional marching band, with fast formation changes, no high-stepping, and a battery of orchestral percussion (xylophones, timpanis, two large hanging bass drums, etc.) set up on the bench area of the field during their halftime show.

· The Husky Marching Band is a traditional marching band that can certainly be mentioned in the same breath as some of their Big Ten brethern as far as quality goes. They employ the typical chair-step marching style, and do a fairly good pre-game show (not nearly as long or as elaborate as the Gopher band, but they do a good job).

· I’m already a page into this and I’m just getting to the game. Oregon won the toss, received, and promptly drew off to a 14-0 lead after their first two possessions. This had all the feeling of a Gopher game in Madison the last decade, except for then Jake Locker unloaded an 82-yard bomb that landed straight into one of UW’s receivers to wake the crowd back up and make it 14-7.

· Dennis Dixon put on one of the most impressive quarterback showings I’ve ever seen in person. Many times over the course of the game he faked handoffs to his backs, and everyone in the stadium bit on it, including cameramen and play-by-play guys. Except Dixon still had the ball and was scrambling 20 yards to the outside.

· Jake Locker, the freshman phenom QB for the Huskies, was no slouch himself. He had been working on his passing touch in the three weeks since I last saw him play against USC, and he wasn’t airmailing passes (like he did twice with potential TDs against the Trojans). Both Boise State and Ohio State fans were heard to remark that they were glad they were playing Locker now, instead of next year or year after, because Locker is scary good. If Tyrone Willingham can get some talent around Locker, the Dawgs will be back in the Pac-10 race before too long.

· The third quarter was a wild shootout if there ever was one. However, by the time time had wound down to around 7 minutes left in the game, Washington had just score to draw within 38-31. At that point, the Ducks had over 600 yards of total offense, and the Dawg defensive backfield looked physically and mentally fried. During the TV timeout after the TD, I had a hunch the Huskies would try a dribble-kick on the ensuing kickoff to try and keep the ball out of Duck hands. Sure enough, they did. One of the Duck up-backs made a spectacular lunge to tip the ball to one of his teammates, and that was the only thing that kept the Dawgs from recovering. This call was NOT popular where I was sitting, although had I been Ty Willingham, I’d have sent in the exact same play.

· For all of its deficiencies, Husky Stadium is LOUD. My seats have all been under the upper deck overhang on the south side, and holy cow did that place ever get loud! Granted, it was louder against USC, but Husky Stadium was howlin’, no pun intended. Camp Randall and Kinnick couldn’t untie Husky Stadium’s boots.

· King County Metro Transit has a substantial network of special game-day services to many of their park-and-rides in the Puget Sound region. Since I live close to one of them (Eastgate Park and Ride), and I’m not tailgating, it makes sense to partake of this service. After the end of the game, Montlake Boulevard is closed to through traffic while a whole fleet of KC Metro buses take folks back to their park-and-rides.

So that’s how my visit to Husky Stadium went. Next weekend I’ll be in Austin, Texas, two weeks after that in Iowa City, and (maybe) the Badger game the week after. Here are some additional links for some of the organizations referenced in this write-up:

Husky Marching Band: http://www.huskymarchingband.com/
Oregon Marching Band: http://omb.uoregon.edu/
Thread at CFN that discusses the animosity between Oregon and Washington:
http://mbd.scout.com/mb.aspx?s=451#s=451&f=2366&t=652154