Oregon’s losing streak-snapping win against Washington Saturday night couldn’t have been more emphatic.
The top-ranked Ducks scored seven touchdowns on offense, had 10 sacks on defense and kept their record nice and clean as they’ll head into the postseason coming off a 49-21 victory inside Autzen Stadium.
With an announced crowd of 59,603 in attendance, Oregon improved to 12-0 overall and completed its first regular season as a member of the Big Ten with a 9-0 conference record.
Up next is the Big Ten Championship game against Penn State at 5 p.m. Saturday at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.
“It’s been a heck of a ride but we’re not done yet,” said inside linebacker and Eugene native Bryce Boettcher, who had 11 tackles, one sack and a forced fumble.
Saturday’s dominant performance by the Ducks gave coach Dan Lanning his first career win against the Huskies (6-6, 4-5). The third-year coach was 0-3 in the rivalry game – three losses that each came by three points in 2022 and 2023 – including a 34-31 defeat in the Pac-12 Championship game in Las Vegas last season.
“It meant a lot,” Lanning said of the victory. “I mean, I go to bed every night thinking about them, I wake up every morning thinking about them. So it’ll nice to be able to think about a win, too.”
Lanning isn’t the only one haunted by last season’s losses.
Senior wide receiver Tez Johnson returned from a two-game injury absence to suit up and make three catches for 36 yards and a touchdown.
“It was personal for me,” he said. “Even though that ain’t last year’s team, I mean, Washington is Washington. I hate them. … That Las Vegas loss was really tough for the entire team, not just me.”
Quarterback Dillon Gabriel, who threw for 209 yards and two touchdowns and rushed for 20 yards and a score, was playing his first game against Washington.
He said there was talk about the rivalry heading into the game, but he preferred to stay focused on “just being where our feet are. History doesn’t help us one bit. You gotta go prove it and I think that we did. … Winning is difficult. It’s not easy to do it consistently. It’s demanding.”
Still, a win against Washington on senior night doesn’t get much better for a player like Boettcher.
“It was kind of a picture-perfect ending,” he said. “Anytime you can beat a rival at home like this and hand it to them like we did is a great feeling.”
Next up is Penn State (11-1), whose only loss is to Ohio State. The Nittany Lions ended their regular season Saturday with a 44-7 win against Maryland.
“We’ve been able to watch them a little bit but we haven’t been able to pay attention to them as much,” Lanning said. “I know they’re really tough to defend, they create a lot of different formations, I think they do a great job of utilizing their personnel. Obviously, they have an elite tight end, a great quarterback … certainly they have some identity traits that we’ve seen but I’m looking forward to taking a deeper dive into them.”
Chris Hansen covers University of Oregon football, men’s basketball, track and field, cross country and softball for The Register-Guard. You can reach him at chansen@registerguard.com and you can follow him on X @chansen_RG
This article originally appeared on Register-Guard: Oregon players, Dan Lanning react to victory against Washington
