Now .500 on the season, the Washington Huskies head down I-5 to the Willamette Valley to take on Oregon State, a team that has seen their confidence rise significantly after a 45-27 shallacking of USC last weekend. The contest will be the Dawgs' first conference road game since November 23rd of 2019 when they traveled to Boulder to play Colorado and came out on the wrong end of a 20-14 decision.
Since leaving Washington following the 2017 season, Jonathan Smith has done his best to boost the talent level and visibility of his alma mater and, even though his record is still just 12–23 overall and 8-18 in conference, he has the Beaver faithful believing they have a team that can compete with the best the conference has to offer week-in and week-out.
Last week, BJ Baylor and Chance Nolan had breakout games against the Trojans and Washington will need to contain both of them when the Beavers have the ball in order to have any chance at pulling out the win. There are plenty of other players to worry about as well, but those two are the offensive difference-makers for Oregon State.
There are also several players on the Beavers' roster who Husky fans will remember from the recruiting trail including Trey Lowe who spent about 18 months on the Washington roster before deciding he wanted to transfer back to his home sate. There is also Tre'Shaun Harrison who was a big-time playmaker at Garfield (Seattle) before he signed with Florida State and lastly, Washington fans should remember the name Tyjon Lindsey, a young man who had offers from the entire Pac 12, including Washington, as well as a few other Power Five programs, but opted to sign with Nebraska before transferring back to the west coast and enrolling at OSU.
The Huskies will have their hands full this week, but as Dylan Morris has gotten more of his receivers to get back on the field after nursing some injuries and the offense has been more productive in reecnt weeks. Kyler Gordon has picked up the slack in the secondary while Trent McDuffie was out last week in their win over Cal in overtime and he came away with a breakout game of his own last week with 10 tackles and two interceptions in the win over Cal.
The guys from Dawgman -- Kim Grinolds, Scott Eklund and Chris Fetters -- take a look at some of the keys for the game on Saturday as well as their thoughts on where things are headed with the Husky football program and what a win over Oregon State could mean as they head into the bye week.
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