Tag: Kenny Wheaton

30 years after ‘The Pick,’ Oregon looks ready to snap another Washington win streak

A look back at the ups and down of one of college football’s great rivalries: the Oregon Ducks vs. the Washington Huskies.

The biggest unknown when conference realignment made its way into college football was how the long-standing rivalries that give the sport its juice would be affected.

When the Oregon Ducks moved to the Big Ten, it effectively killed the Civil War — the annual game between instate rivals Oregon and Oregon State. Sure, the Ducks played the Beavers in Corvallis this September, but I think we can all agree that the game just didn’t feel the same. But, there were some positive repercussions of conference realignment for the Ducks.

This year, and for the foreseeable future, Oregon will play the Washington Huskies during rivalry week (the final regular season game of the season) instead of Oregon State. Many Ducks fans feel Washington is Oregon’s chief rival, and the Ducks and Huskies’ move to the Big Ten allows the right game to be played during rivalry week.

Oregon and Washington have played 116 games in their history, beginning with a 43-0 Ducks victory in 1900 hundred. Since that first game, the Ducks have won 47 more games, the Huskies have won 63 games, and five have ended in ties.

While the Ducks lead the series in the 21st century 16 to seven, the last two seasons have been all Washington. The Ducks and Huskies have played three times since 2022, with all three games going to Washington — each by a margin of three points.

All three losses diminished — or crushed — Oregon’s College Football Playoff hopes, particularly the Ducks’ most recent loss in the Pac-12 Championship Game last December. Instead of Oregon in the playoff, it was the Huskies who advanced to the National Championship Game.

Ducks Head Coach Dan Lanning has accomplished a lot, with a 33-5 record and two bowl wins accenting his resume, but short of the National Championship itself, Lanning has one last hill to summit: beating Washington. Lanning’s risk-seeking nature has brought the Ducks a lot of success, but in Oregon’s three losses to Washington during his tenure, Lanning’s dice rolls (particularly on fourth-and-short situations) have hurt the Ducks more than they’ve helped.

Of course, there’s far more history to the Cascade Clash than the last two seasons. The most famous play in Oregon football history came against Washington in 1994. With Washington on a five-year win-streak, the Ducks finally had a chance to knock off the Huskies with a 24-20 lead late in the game, but Damon Huard and the Huskies were driving. Just when it looked like Washington would score a TF and continue their streak, Kenny Wheaton — a freshman cornerback — picked the ball off and housed it.

Since that October day in ’94, the play is known simply by Ducks’ fans as, “The Pick.”

This year, Washington doesn’t have the power to snuff out Oregon’s College Football Playoff hopes. Even with a loss in Autzen, the Ducks are still playoff shoe-ins, but that doesn’t mean this game is any less important. Rivalry games like this are a big reason why fans turn on their TVs and buy season tickets. The Huskies are unranked and facing down the barrel of a .500 season, but a Ducks victory on Saturday is still essential to the growth of Oregon’s program.

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Series History between the Washington and Oregon features hate, spite, and dominance

Series History between the Washington and Oregon features hate, spite, and dominance on both sides.

While Week 5 vs. the Stanford Cardinal was absolutely billed as a rivalry game, this one’s different.

It’s different for a couple of reasons. It’s a top-ten matchup, Bo Nix and Michael Penix Jr. are both candidates for the Heisman Trophy, and the Ducks lost to the Huskies at home last year, which ended their College Football Playoff chances.

But mostly, it’s different because these teams just hate each other.

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The annual matchup between the Ducks and the Huskies has been around since 1900 — when the Ducks beat the Huskies 43-0 — but the most significant origin of the rivalry came in 1948.

At the end of the 1948 season, Oregon and Cal were undefeated in conference play (Pacific Coast Conference). Oregon was in favor of a conference championship, but Cal elected to not play an extra game. Instead, each of the 10 schools in the PCC would vote on the conference’s champion — and Rose Bowl representative. Going in, Oregon was the presumable winner, but Washington reportedly convinced Montana — a PCC member at the time — to vote for the Golden Bears instead of the Ducks, which sent Cal to the Rose Bowl.

The most famous moment of the Oregon-Washington rivalry came in 1994 when Kenny Wheaton, a Ducks’ DB, picked the ball off from Huskies QB, Damon Huard at the three-yard line and took the ball back 97 yards for a score in the waning moments of the game. “The Pick” as it came to be known, was the Ducks’ dagger in a game that snapped a five-year Washington win streak, and it also marked a major turning point for the Oregon football program as a whole.

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Including that 1900 matchup, the Ducks and the Huskies have played 114 times. Oregon has won 48 of those games while Washington has won 61, with 5 ties in there as well. In more recent history though, Oregon has been the favorite. In the 21st century, the Ducks have been victorious in 16 of 21 matchups — with a 12-game winning streak from 2004-15. Before that run, however, Washington was rarely tested, winning 61 of the first 93 matchups between the two.

While this rivalry is full of history, the 115th matchup between these two teams will likely be the most anticipated and most important Oregon-Washington game ever. Both teams are in the top ten of the AP Poll for the first time ever in a head-to-head matchup, and both are legitimate College Football Playoff candidates. Saturday should be a fun one, and also one for the history books.

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