Dawgs Headed To Purdue For Second Straight Friday Game

Friday, October 16

West Lafayette, Ind.

5:00 p.m. PT

University of Washington

Purdue

UW football players huddle prior to game vs Iowa on 10/9/26

Photo by: Scott Eklund / Red Box Pictures

October 12, 2026 | Football

Full UW Notes

THE GAME: In a season that has already seen the Washington football team play host to Minnesota for the first time in 50 years, to Iowa for the first time in 63 years, and in one that will see Penn State make its first visit to Seattle in 105 years, the Huskies (3-3 overall, 0-3 Big Ten) will make their first trip to Purdue (3-3, 2-1) in 36 seasons this Friday. The game will be the UW's second straight Friday contest. It kicks off at 8:00 p.m. ET/5:00 p.m. PT in West Lafayette, Ind., and will air on FOX television. Last season, the Huskies and Boilermakers squared off as Big Ten foes for the first time, a 49-13 UW win at Husky Stadium, having last played in the 2002 Sun Bowl. Following this week's Purdue trip, the Huskies will have a week off before returning to the road to face Nebraska on Halloween. UW's next home game is vs. Penn State, for Homecoming, on Saturday, Nov. 7.

QUICK HITTERS: After playing four home games over the course of 21 days (Sept. 6-26) to begin the season, UW will now play just one home game (last Friday vs. Iowa) over a span of 41 days (Sept. 27-Nov. 6) ... following the Iowa game, UW will go 28 days before playing host to Penn State for Homecoming on Nov. 7 ... Husky punter Hunter Green is No. 6 in the FBS and No. 1 in the Big Ten in punting average (47.6 yard per punt, on pace for No. 2 in UW history) ... Green's career average of 45.9 (on 229 career punts) ranks No. 2 among active NCAA Division I (FBS and FCS) punters ... in the 2026 opener, UW held Washington State to no successful third-down conversion attempts, in 11 tries ... the last time a Husky opponent failed to convert a single third-down conversion in a game was in the Huskies' memorable, 16-13 win over USC in 2009 ... UW started four first-year players in the WSU game, three on defense (edge Ramzak Fruean, defensive tackle Derek Colman-Brusa and nickelback Jeron Jones) and one on offense (left tackle Kodi Greene) ... another, RB Brian Bonner Jr., started vs. Utah State ... last season, first-year players (i.e., true freshmen) made 44 starts for the Huskies, who are on pace to break that record once more in 2026 ... UW QB Demond Williams Jr. surpassed 1,000 career rushing yards in the Utah State game, and now has 1,076 ... he's the third UW QB to rush for 1,000 career yards, joining Jake Locker (1,939) and Marques Tuiasosopo (1,495).

TELEVISION: The UW-Purdue game will air on FOX television, with Dan Hellie and Robert Smith on the call. For more info, go to: www.foxsports.com/live.

RADIO: All Washington football games will air on the Washington Sports Network from Learfield, with Elise Woodward (play by play), former Husky tight end Cameron Cleeland (analyst), and Dave Mahler (sidelines) on the call. Radio coverage begins four hours before kickoff on the network's flagship station – Seattle's SportsRadio KJR 93.3 FM – with "Husky Gameday" live from The Zone for Husky home games. Statewide coverage on the 17-station Washington Sports Network begins two hours before kickoff. The entire broadcast is available worldwide on the Go Huskies mobile app and the Varsity app. The UW broadcast of this game will also air on Sirius/XM channel 257.

ACADEMIC SUCCESS: Washington's football players have continued to perform at the highest academic levels, as the program continues to post impressive cumulative team GPAs. Last school year (2024-25), the UW football team achieved a team grade-point average of 3.31 in both the fall and winter quarters, and then wrapped up the year with a 3.27 in the spring quarter. In the spring quarter, a whopping 31 members of the UW roster earned a place on the Dean's List, and 49 of the players on the 2026 roster were on the Dean's List at least once in 2025-26 (most of them multiple times): Deji Ajose, Xe'ree Alexander, Buddah Al-Uqdah, Aiden Anderson, Dash Beierly, Elijah Brown, Jace Burton, Quaid Carr, D'Aryhian Clemons, Derek Colman-Brusa, Lowen Colman-Brusa, Charlie Crowell, Parker Cross, Decker DeGraaf, Kolt Dieterich, Luke Dunne, Kade Eldridge, Soane Faasolo, Jake Flores, Hunter Green, Kayden Greene, Kodi Greene, Landen Hatchett, Devin Hyde, Justin Hylkema, Ksani Jiles, Jacob Lane, Jayden Limar, Jacob Manu, Kai McClendon, Hunter McKee, Julian McMahan, Bodpegn Miller, John Mills, Ryken Moon, Hayden Moore, Baron Naone, Zaydrius Rainey-Sale, Donovan Robinson, Dylan Robinson, Tyler Robles, Victor Sanchez Hernandez, Champ Taulealea, Sam Vyhlidal, Beck Walker, C.J. Wallace, Isaiah Ward, Jordan Washington, and DeSean Watts.

IN THE CFP ERA: The era of the four-team College Football Playoff is gone, but that 10-season stretch (2014-2023) is instructive in terms of illustrating the teams that operated at the top level of the sport during that timespan, and Washington is one of those teams. Over that 10-year stretch, only 15 different programs earned a berth in the CFP semifinals, and only eight reached the tournament more than once. With two CPF berths in the four-team era (2016 and 2023), Washington is one of those eight, and one of just two programs to reach the four-team CFP under two different head coaches (Oklahoma was the other). Only six teams made more than two appearances: Alabama (8), Clemson (6), Ohio State (5), Oklahoma (4), Georgia (3) and Michigan (3). For what it's worth, six more teams made their CFP debut in the 12-team bracket in 2024, and another five were first-time selections in 2025, but UW still remains one of just 11 teams to have appeared in the CFP more than once, when counting the latest data.

B1G TIME: As has been well documented over the last couple of years, Washington officially joined the Big Ten Conference ahead of the 2024-25 school year, effective on Aug. 2, 2024. The Huskies were joined be fellow former Pac-12 programs Oregon, UCLA and USC in making the move to the B1G, which now includes 18 schools. Washington was one of four founding members of the Pacific Coast Conference (along with Cal, Oregon and Oregon State), and, along with Cal, was one of just two teams that were a part of that league (which changed names to the AAWU, Pac-8, Pac-10 and Pac-12) for the entirety of its full-fledged existence from 1915 through 2026.

CAPTAINS: The following players have been named captains for the 2026 season: Drew Azzopardi, Elinneus Davis, Landen Hatchett, Jacob Manu, Alex McLaughlin, John Mills and Demond Williams Jr. Hatchett and Williams were also captains in 2025. Mills in believed to be the first second-year/sophomore captain in program history.

FUTURE SCHEDULES: In October, 2023, the Big Ten revealed 18 football teams' home and away, conference opponents for the next for the following five seasons (2024-28). Here are the UW's home and road, Big Ten games, for the coming two years:

2027: home – Maryland, Michigan State, Nebraska, Oregon, USC
road – Minnesota, Northwestern, Penn State, Rutgers
2028: home – Michigan, Northwestern, UCLA, Wisconsin
road – Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Ohio State, Oregon

HUSKIES vs. BOILERMAKERS HISTORY: Washington and Purdue have faced one another a total of 11 times, with UW holding an 8-2-1 record vs. the Boilermakers. UW lost the first meeting, in 1961, and tied the next the following season, before winning seven in a row, a stretch that ran through the 2001 Rose Bowl game. Purdue beat the Huskies at the 2002 Sun Bowl, but Washington won the most recent game, last season in Seattle.

The Huskies, fresh from a national championship year in 1960, opened the '61 season at home vs. Purdue, with the visitors winning, 13-6. The Boilers got two Skip Ohl field goals and a 30-yard touchdown run from Dave Miller to take a 13-0 lead, and then held off UW, which managed only a 15-yard TD pass from Bill Siler to Jim Stiger early in the fourth. The following year, also in Seattle in season opener, the game finished in a 7-7 tie. UW's Bob Monroe scored on a two-yard run in the first, and Purdue's Tom Yakubowski scored from two yards out in the second to account for the final score. UW missed two late field-goal attempts that could have broken the tie.

A decade later, UW and Purdue once again met, in 1971 and 1972. In '71, Washington fought to claim a 38-35 victory in a thriller that pitted starting QBs Sonny Sixkiller and Gary Danielson against one another. Sixkiller went 24-for-48 for 387 yards (breaking his own school record for passing yards), with two TDs and three interceptions. Danielson went 11-for-23 for 183 yards, with one score and two picks, but Sixkiller's 33-yard toss to Tom Scott with 2:29 left in the game proved the winner. The following year in West Lafayette, the two quarterbacks squared off once again, and UW won, 22-21, on a field goal with 2:04 to play. Down 21-7, the Huskies scored 15 in the final quarter. Danielson rushed for 213 yards in the loss.

The series was renewed over four consecutive seasons, 1987-1990, with the Huskies winning all four. In 1987, Husky quarterback Chris Chandler passed for 200 yards and three touchdowns in a 21-10 Husky win in Seattle. The following year at Ross-Ade Stadium, Washington out-slugged the Boilermakers in a 20-6 win, despite just 294 yards of total offense.

In 1989, the 15th-ranked Dawgs rolled to a 38-9 win in Seattle, with Cary Conklin passing for 215 yards and three touchdowns. Greg Lewis rushed for 165 yards in the win. The following year back in Indiana, Washington pulled out a 20-14 win, thanks to a fourth-quarter, 35-yard TD pass from Mark Brunell to Orlando McKay, overcoming that had once been a 14-7 Purdue edge. Lewis rushed for 101 yards while Brunell passed for 150 and ran for 76.

It wasn't until the end of the 2000 season when the Huskies and Boilermakers once again squared off on the gridiron, this time in the 2001 Rose Bowl game, which feature another matchup of high-profile QBs: Washington's Marques Tuiasosopo and Purdue's Drew Brees, the MVPs of the Pac-10 and Big Ten Conferences. With injured teammate Curtis Williams watching from the press box less than three months removed from the devasting injury that would eventually take his life, the Huskies took a 14-0 lead on runs from Braxton Cleman and Tuiasosopo, but Purdue cut the lead to 14-10 by half. In the third quarter, the Boilers tied the score at 17-17, but a John Anderson field goal and touchdowns from Willie Hurst and Todd Elstrom gave the Huskies a 34-17 lead. A late Purdue score narrowed the gap. Tuiasosopo was the game's MVP, and the Huskies finished the season 11-1 and No. 3 in the final AP poll.

Two seasons later, the teams once again met in a bowl, this time at the 2002 Sun Bowl in El Paso. Washington took a 17-0 lead in the first quarter, but Purdue stormed back, trailing 17-14 at half. The Boilermakers then outscored the Huskies, 17-0, in the third period and coasted to a 34-24 win, reversing the Rose Bowl score from two years earlier. Kyle Orton passed for 283 yards for Purdue, while Cody Pickett notched 272 for UW.

The series was renewed last season on Nov. 15, 2025, when Washington earned a 49-13 victory in Husky Stadium. UW quarterback Demond Williams Jr. had a very efficient game, completing 16-of-19 for 257 yards and two touchdowns and Jordan Washington rushed for 108 yards on just five carries for the Dawgs.