Rivalry Story Time: The Ducks and The Weasel
His time on TV may have scrubbed his reputation for many folks, but Rick Neuheisel will always be the "Scoreboard, Baby" guy in Eugene.
This season will feature the first Duck/Husky game I’ve missed in six years, home or away.*
I’ve made a little tradition of traveling from far and wide to watch this game over the years—savoring every victory, and agonizing in the few defeats.
The trip has created wonderful little road game traditions like dragging my friends to the (now permanently closed) Travelodge across from Seattle’s University Village. It was an awful, awful hotel, but it was cheap and wonderful and within walking distance from the Seattle City Dump/Husky Stadium, so it holds a special, grimy place in my heart.
I do actually have some gracious Huskies in my life, so I don’t want to make this a total insufferable hate-fest, but it’s safe to say that this rivalry means a little bit to me.
And much like my piece on when Oregon State tried to do a coup, I’d still like to explore the lesser-known corners of this rivalry.
No, I won’t go all the way back to tell the story of how Washington conspired with Montana to steal the 1948 Pacific Coast Conference title from the Webfoots.
And I’m honestly bored of horror stories that fans of both the Ducks and Huskies tell about, “that-one-time-where-a-guy-they-know-got-hit-with-ice-or-dog poop-or-piss bags-by-team-x’s-fans.”
Look, we all get bagged at some point in our lives. It doesn’t make you special. Best just to chug a gatorade, grab a ziploc, and get yourself back out there, champ.
Instead, I want to talk about the post-grunge 2000s, and the era of Rick Neuheisel in Seattle.
You may know Rick as a friendly TV personality, but before he cleaned up his act, Neuheisel was a bleached blonde UCLA QB, and then Head Coach at Colorado.
At CU, the Ducks faced him in the ’96 Cotton Bowl (where he ran a fake punt on 4th & 14 while up 31-6), and again in the ’98 Aloha Bowl (where Bellotti commented that UO was the better team, they just made too many mistakes.
Rick laughed and said, “Scoreboard, baby.”**
**Scoreboard, Baby later became the title of a book that exposed all of the backdoor dealings and bagmen of the Slick Rick era at Washington. Buy it here from Powell’s Books (not an ad):
So, Duck fans already thoroughly hated Kobra Kai Ricky before he wore purple and gold, but his short stint at the Harvard of the South Central Puget Sound Metropolitan Area solidified his status as “The Neu-Weasel” forever.
Right before Oregon rattled off twelve straight wins over UDub between 2004 and 2015, the Huskies actually use to show up for this game. And they often beat the Ducks up BAD.
Slick himself was 2-1 against UO when he was a Husky, but he also managed to avoid Harrington’s 2001 team—one of the top five in school history—and he lost to the Ducks head-to-head in 2000, but still found his way into the Rose Bowl because Joey had to throw five p*cks against the Beav.
But in 2002, the 23rd-ranked Ducks went into halftime tied 14-14 with the middling Huskies. 28 unanswered second half points later, and Washington came out on top, 42-14. In Autzen Stadium.
Slick was so proud of his 6-5 pups that he called them out on the field for twenty minutes of frolicking and, reportedly, “dancing on the O.” The celebration was earned—Troy Dye did much worse in his own triumphs over the doogs, surely—but it’s still perfectly weasel-y and drew the ire of Oregonians all the same.
And that party better have been worth it, because Slick was fired from UDub the following summer.
Neu-Weasel followed in the illustrious footsteps of other legally-challenged Washington coaches. He was caught betting on a high-stakes March Madness pool, and then he lied about it. He said he didn’t know college coaches weren’t allowed to bet on college sports.
Look, I think The Weasel is a weasel, but he’s probably not dumb.
And even though Rick had been canned, the Husky Hate of course lived on into the next season.
As the Ducks headed north in 2003, UO safety Keith Lewis stated his intent to not only beat the Huskies this time around, but to exact his revenge by dancing all over their W. Oregon was even up 10-7 at half, until deja vu struck hard with UDub scoring 35 unanswered.
Then the Huskies went out and danced on their own W.
And that’s on the Ducks eating a heaping helping of crow.
Husky fans still argue that Mike Bellotti was the person who reported Rick’s violations to the NCAA. They also blame Oregon for Don James getting caught. But it sounds to me like they just need to get Altman-level-better at covering up their cheating.
My question: do Washington fans prefer when their coaches are canned in disgrace (James, Lambright, Neuheisel) or when they just straight up quit (Sark, Petersen)?
Only time will tell where Jimmy Lake falls on that spectrum.
Happy Hating!
Go Ducks.