12-0: The No. 1 Oregon Ducks cap a historic regular season with thumping of Washington
The Ducks say tomorrow is fiction, but for the night they were perfect
EUGENE — Autzen Stadium had started to empty when Washington freshman quarterback Demond Williams Jr. dropped back and connected with Giles Jackson streaking across the field for a 28-yard touchdown. The score came with 1:43 to play and sent the Washington cheer squad into jubilation.
“Don’t leave yet,” yelled one male member from the squad. “The comeback starts now.”
The score was 49-21, by the way, but despite the cold, and despite the challenging season the Huskies faced in their first-year post-Kalen DeBoer, the encouragement didn’t come from a place of delirium.
It’s just what the Huskies knew.
Because when Washington plays Dan Lanning’s Ducks, something has always happened for them. It could have been a missed kick, or a turnover on downs, an injury or just another one of those back-breaking passes between Michael Penix Jr. and Rome Odunze. Three times the Ducks and Huskies have played in the Lanning era, and, until Saturday, those three games amounted to three losses by a combined nine points.
It’s something the generally forward-looking Oregon coach hasn’t been able to shake from his memory.
“I go to bed every night thinking about them,” Lanning said. “I wake up every morning thinking about them.”
When Lanning wakes up Sunday morning, he’ll rise with a career scoring differential of +19 against the Huskies following Oregon’s 49-21 win. And he’ll also begin his week as just the second coach in Oregon history to lead his team to a 12-0 record. Lanning, of course, didn’t feel much like reflecting. He said “season’s not over” and mentioned that it’s time to start preparing for Penn State in Saturday’s Big Ten Championship game.
“In our world you don’t get the opportunity to be satisfied,” Lanning said. “That’s just the reality of the world we live in. Everybody is going to be patting us on the back now and who cares? It didn’t matter before and it doesn’t matter now. I remember early in the season everyone was telling us how crap we were after our first few games.”