What did the Washington Huskies do to enrage the Pac-12?

People in Seattle have to be annoyed, if not worse.

This website is called Trojans Wire, so we aim to cover USC sports, but we are the only Pac-12 site in the USA TODAY College Wires network, so we do have an obligation to cover the Pac-12.

If there is a significant school-specific drama attached to the release of the new Pac-12 football schedule which doesn’t have anything to do with USC, it is the continuing split between the way the Pac-12 treats the University of Washington and the University of Oregon.

Let’s go back to 2018:

Washington played a road game at UCLA and then had to go to Eugene to play the Ducks, who had an off week before hosting the Huskies.

Last year, Oregon had an off week in late September. Washington didn’t have its first off week of the season until the final Saturday of October. Washington hosted Oregon after a draining two-week road trip to Stanford and then Arizona. Oregon went to Seattle to play the Huskies after the off week and then two straight home games. Oregon played a Friday night home game the week before Washington, giving the Ducks an added day of rest for UW.

Now look at the 2020 schedule:

GUESS WHAT?

Yup, Oregon once again has an off week before hosting the Huskies.

Come on. This can’t be an idle coincidence when it keeps happening over and over again.

We could reasonably view it as an accident or an isolated failure to schedule well when Oregon — in 2018 — got the home date against Washington after an idle week. A one-time mistake? Not great, but not a pattern of systemic bias. It wouldn’t be a big deal if it didn’t happen again.

BUT…. IT HAPPENED AGAIN! More precisely, it happened again the VERY NEXT TIME OREGON HOSTED WASHINGTON!

In other words, this wasn’t a mistake made twice in a six-year span. No! This mistake has now been made in consecutive years when Oregon hosted Washington.

Every school in any conference — not just the Power Five conferences, and not just the Pac-12 — should expect to receive competitive balance and fairness in relationship to other schools. That Washington plainly fails to receive those basic items is bad enough; that the Huskies fail to get decent treatment relative to their fiercest league rival, Oregon, is that much more irritating and — moreover — conspicuous.

What did the Washington Huskies do to enrage the Pac-12? The league could not do a better job of unreasonably tilting the playing field in one school’s favor, at another school’s expense.

It’s yet another reason Larry Scott can’t be allowed to continue on as commissioner. These amateur-hour displays can’t be allowed to keep happening.