Washington coach, as well as Oregon’s own Dan Lanning, know how important this game and the rivalry is between the two teams. If they didn’t know it before last season’s game, they certainly know it now.
Both coaches are in their second years at their programs and for DeBoer, the rebuilding process was a little more daunting than in Eugene. But he says he’s happy with the giant progress the Huskies have made and they’ll ready to go on Saturday.
“The thing for us is that we wanted to make sure that this weekend was big,” DeBoer said in his weekly news conference. “I’m proud of the guys on how they’ve weekly taken care of business. Hopefully you saw this as inevitable that it came to this point. We have a lot of respect for Oregon and what they’ve done with their season.”
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The two programs are at a point in time where they mirror each other and for a long time, it hasn’t been that way. It seemed as if one program would have the upper hand on the other, but even down to having problems with too many penalties, the Ducks and Huskies could be considered twins in some respect.
On Saturday, however, the Dawgs will have a tremendous advantage with the game being at Husky Stadium and DeBoer hopes the atmosphere will be the difference.
“I think there is another level (of noise and craziness) and I’m excited to see it this weekend,” he said.
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Husky Stadium is certainly one of the loudest football stadiums in the country and rivals Autzen Stadium. But that doesn’t mean the road team doesn’t have a shot. Washington managed to win in Eugene just last year and DeBoer says that win created a belief within his program and is a large part of why they’re at where they’re at now.
“There was a good build-up to that game with a close win over Oregon State and as we’ve building up and winning close games and fighting through some adversity,” DeBoer said. “We were learning about ourselves and how we can get through it. That one (the win over the Ducks) certainly put us over the top in the belief and the trust in what we were doing at that point,”
Washington is 8-0 since that win in Eugene and the Huskies look for their 13th straight win overall, while the Ducks will be trying to halt all of that momentum.