For fans on both sides, the Oregon-Washington game is the most anticipated game of every football season—I know it’s mine.
It’s intense, but if either team hypothetically had to go 1-11 on the year (not to be confused with 0-12) then I can guarantee you that us fans would be able to find even just an ounce of solace if our single win came against that damned dirty team to The North/South.
But that desperation is typical of every great sports rivalry that has ever existed. What defines this rivalry?
“Dubs Down” is taken directly from Oklahoma’s anti-Texas, “Horns Down.”
My ❌hole schtick of ❌ing out the letter “❌” is something I only started after I sa❌ some Ohio State fans ❌ing out all the Ms on their campus as to thro❌ diet shade on Michigan.
Our game doesn’t have a trophy or one of those cool names, either. Border War? I-5 Rivalry? Nothing has ever really stuck.
Even this whole bit about one school being more “academically prowess” than the other is just the same tired “they-couldn’t-even-get-into-our-school” argument that every college ever has with every other college. Harvard and Yale started it, and it’s only gotten dorkier and lamer ever since.
“Yeah well my dad can beat up your dad!”
Oregon-Washington is a lot of things. It’s Old Money vs. New Money. Big City vs. College Town. The first 90 years vs. the last 30. State vs. Remarkably Similar State.
It’s all of those things and of course it’s a lot more, but still, pretty much none of those things are wildly unique.
But we don’t live for this rivalry because it’s unique.
We live for this rivalry for much simpler, emotional reasons.
It’s because we hate those stinkin’ bastards over there with their rotten jersey colors, and their dumb traditions, and their crummy gameday atmosphere that we seem to keep traveling to every other year for some reason, and their stupid stadium that has slowly become our second-most visited college football stadium, and, and, and.
Wait. Am I in a will-they-won’t-they relationship with the Washington Huskies?
When kids are on the playground, pulling at each other’s pigtails and pushing each other down the slide, we all know that’s flirting, right?
Maybe that’s what every sports rivalry is.
Think about it, when the schedule drops every year, I already know the non-conference slate, and I always know the Beavers will end the year, so my eyes immediately dart around to find the one letter of the alphabet that I claim to despise the most.
“When am I gonna see them again?”
In Fever Pitch, Jimmy Fallon makes all of his fellow Red Sox fans compete in a dance-off just to decide who wins the chance to go to each Yankee game. The opportunity to catch a glimpse of them—to hate with your own eyes—is the ultimate reward.
We can no longer ignore the utter irony of hating Washington while our favorite game each year is literally 50% Washington.
It’s Stockholm Syndrome. We’re institutionalized. Or it’s just plain sadism.
Whatever it is, we’ll luckily never escape this annual game that we love to hate and hate to love—at least until the next global pandemic.
I still hate the Huskies, make no mistake. Regardless of the records or if the Ducks have won another decades worth of these matchups, this game will always mean everything and it will also always mean way more than I’m proud to admit.
I just can’t quit them.
Go Ducks.