Fubo News breaks down what’s on the line between Washington and Oregon – past, present and future. Watch the big game on Fubo.
In college football, there are big games and then there are big games. This Saturday’s matchup between No. 7 Washington and No. 8 Oregon qualifies at the latter.
Now, in some ways that may seem like a ‘no duh’ kind of statement. Yeah, it’s a top-10 matchup between two conference teams – of course, it’s a big game.
This game is more than that though. The storylines and stakes run deep for Saturday’s meeting at Husky Stadium in Seattle. Past, present, and future – there’s plenty to follow when the Ducks and Huskies take the field this week.
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The Past
This will be the 115th playing of the Oregon-Washington rivalry, which dates back to 1900. Also known as the Cascade Clash (or the Border War, but to this one-time Mizzou accepted students day attendee there’s only one true Border War, and that’s Missouri-Kansas), it’s a series that has gone back-and-forth.
Washington has the all-time lead, winning 61 games to Washington’s 48, with five ties. However, Oregon has dominated much of the last 20 years of the rivalry. Between 2004 and 2016 Oregon won 12 head-to-head meetings in a row. Washington ended that game in spectacular fashion with a 70-21 win in Eugene in 2016, capped by the viral moment of Washington quarterback Jake Browning taunting an Oregon defender as he scored.
Washington would win the next year before Oregon rolled off three more wins in a row – all in close games. Oregon’s 2021 win followed comments by then-Washington head coach Jimmy Lake about the academic standings of the two schools, which added a spark to the rivalry.
Asked leading up to the game if Oregon was a recruiting rival, Lake said, “No, I don’t think so. I think that is way more pumped up than it is. Our battles are really – the schools that we go against are way more… have academic prowess, like the University of Washington. Notre Dame. Stanford. USC. We go with a lot of battles toe-to-toe all the way to the end with those schools. So I think that’s made up in your world. In our world, we battle more academically prowess teams.”
Last year, Washington struck back. The Huskies trailed by seven with just over three minutes to go but tied the game with a 62-yard touchdown. Oregon took a risk on the next drive and went for a 4th & 1 deep in their own territory, which Washington stopped, setting up a game-winning field goal.
Will Oregon finish the job this time around? Or will Washington add to its lead in the series? That brings us to…
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The Present
Despite their extensive history, this is the first time that Washington and Oregon meet with both teams ranked in the Top 10. The stakes that come with that are enormous.
First, there’s the Pac-12. In the conference’s final year, it’s been arguably the best in college football, especially at the top. Oregon and Washington are two of the conference’s three unbeaten teams, along with No. 10 USC. There are four other ranked teams as well in No. 15 Oregon State, No. 16 Utah, No. 18 UCLA and No. 19 Washington State that are all threats to the top of the class.
A change in structure to the conference’s postseason also ups the ante this Saturday. In the past, the Pac-12 had two divisions, with the winners of each facing off in the conference championship. Those divisions no longer exist, with the two teams with the two best records squaring off instead. So, a win on Saturday gives one team a major leg up, especially with USC looking shaky in recent weeks (a near collapse against Colorado was followed by an overtime win against a sub-.500 Arizona team last week).
Then there’s the College Football Playoff picture. The first CFB rankings are just a few weeks away (they come out the Tuesday after Week 9, which is Halloween) and initial positioning can be big, especially for the teams that don’t traditionally tend to get the benefit of the doubt from the committee, like Georgia, Alabama, Michigan, Ohio State or Notre Dame.
With both teams having games left against USC as well, there’s a chance there are two or three one-loss Pac-12 teams vying for a playoff spot. If that ends up happening, strength of schedule and/or key victories could loom large. This game is certainly one that will get revisited if things get to that point.
That playoff conversation is a bit down the road, but not too far off. At the same time, there is another storyline from this game that extends well beyond that…
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The Future
The College Football Playoff won’t be the only reason we look back at this game. Expect it to come up in this year’s NFL Draft discourse, specifically, when talking about the two quarterbacks: Michael Penix of Washington and Bo Nix of Oregon.
In what is expected to be a loaded quarterback class, Penix and Nix are projected to be towards the top of it. Both enter the week as consensus late-first, early-second-round picks. A game like this will be a chance for both to make their case as to why they should be first-round locks, and/or in the upper tier of the passers coming out this year.
For Penix, the stakes – while high – are relatively simple. The toughest opponents factor more heavily into draft evaluations, and Oregon is the toughest defense Penix will face (at least in the regular season) this year. Oregon comes in ranked fifth in the nation in both scoring defense (11.8 points per game) as well as passing yards allowed (153.6 yards per game).
Penix, meanwhile, ranks third in the country with a 196.47 passer rating while throwing for 399.8 yards per game with 16 touchdowns and just two interceptions. Can he keep that level of play up against one of the best defenses in the country?
As for Nix, he ranks right behind Penix nationally with 188.53 and has been impressive in his own right. And he’ll have to crack a Washington defense that – while not as good as Oregon’s – hasn’t been a pushover this year, ranking 27th in the nation allowing 18.4 points per game. But Nix’s evaluation and the stakes for him in this game run a little deeper.
When Nix transferred out of Auburn following the 2021 season, his NFL prospects were slim. The one-time four-star prospect and top-ranked quarterback in his high school class had failed to live up to the hype. He went 12-12 his final two years as the starter for the Tigers, with bowl losses both seasons.
Since arriving in Eugene though, Nix has reinvented himself as a much more poised, efficient and effective passer. Many of the issues he showed at Auburn are no longer showing up. He’s cut down on negative plays tremendously. His touchdown to interception ratio has gone from 2.4 at Auburn to 5.5 so far with Oregon, and after taking 50 sacks in 34 games with Auburn he’s taken just eight in 18 games with Oregon since the start of last year.
So what does that have to do with this week? There’s still one box Nix hasn’t checked in terms of his biggest criticism at Auburn, and this week may be his only time to do so.
During his time at Auburn, Nix struggled on the road. He was 2-6 against ranked road opponents over those three years, including a 0-6 mark against teams ranked No. 16 and higher. Not only did Nix lose those games they were often some of his worst performances of the season, earning him the nickname ‘Road Nix.’
Last year, the Ducks played just one ranked road game and lost to rival No. 22 Oregon State 38-34 in the Civil War, in a game that saw Oregon blow a 34-17 fourth-quarter lead.
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Now is Nix’s best chance to prove he can go into a hostile environment and beat a good team – something NFL scouts will surely want to see. It might also be his only chance – the Ducks only have one more game currently scheduled against a ranked team, in No. 16 Utah in two weeks.
If Nix goes into Seattle, goes toe-to-toe against Penix, and beats the Huskies, it would go a long way in proving he’s moved on from the under-performing top recruit he was at Auburn.
Which quarterback will prove what they need to prove on Saturday? Will they both step up, leading to a shootout? Or will two of the top defenses in the country take over the game? It’s all on the table. The only thing we know for sure is it should be a good one this Saturday in Seattle.
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