Saturday, November 7
Seattle, Wash.
12:30 p.m. PT
University of Washington
vs
Penn State
Photo by: Scott Eklund / Red Box Pictures
November 02, 2026 | Football
THE GAME: For the first time in nearly a month, the Washington football team (5-3 overall, 2-3 Big Ten) returns to Husky Stadium this Saturday, Nov. 7, for Homecoming. The Huskies, on a two-game winning streak and following a thrilling, comeback victory last Saturday night at Nebraska, take on Penn State (4-4, 1-4). Kickoff is scheduled for 12:30 p.m., and the game will air on FS1 television. The Nittany Lions will be making their first trip to Seattle since 1921, 105 years ago, when Coach Hugo Bezdek and his team beat the UW in just the seventh game ever at Husky Stadium. Washington and Penn State have played one another just four times, including in the 1983 Aloha Bowl, the 2017 Fiesta Bowl, and in a regular-season meeting in 2024. After the Penn State game, the Huskies return to the road the folllowing weekend to take on Michigan State.
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QUICK HITTERS:Â After playing four home games over the course of 21 days (Sept. 6-26) to begin the season, UW played just one home game (Oct. 9 vs. Iowa) over a span of 41 days (Sept. 27-Nov. 6) ... following the Iowa game, UW will have gone 28 days before playing host to Penn State on Saturday ... Husky punter Hunter Green is No. 6 in the FBS and No. 1 in the Big Ten in punting average (48.1 yard per punt, on pace for No. 2 in UW history) ... Green's career average of 46.0 (on 239 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 ... Washington has had five different first-year players start multiple games this year: DL Derek Colman-Brusa, EDGE Ramzak Fruean, OT Kodi Greene, CB Jeron Jones, and RB Brian Bonner Jr. ... those five have combined to make 32 starts in 2026 ... 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 this season ... UW QB Demond Williams Jr. surpassed 1,000 career rushing yards in the Utah State game, and now has 1,104 ... he's the third UW QB to rush for 1,000 career yards, joining Jake Locker (1,939) and Marques Tuiasosopo (1,495).
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TELEVISION: The UW-Penn State game will air on FS1, with Dan Hellie and Robert Smith on the call. For more info, go to: foxsports.com/live.
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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 175 or 232.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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:
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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
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HUSKIES vs. NITTANY LIONS HISTORY: Washington and Penn State have met just four times on the gridiron – a 1921 game in Seattle, in the 1983 Aloha Bowl, in the 2017 Fiesta Bowl and, most recently, in a regular-season game in Happy Valley in 2024. The Nittany Lions have won all four. In the 1921 game, played Dec. 3 at one-year-old Husky Stadium (not yet known by that name), Penn State earned a 21-7 win in front of 13,827 fans. That year was the last year that the University of Washington teams were known as the "Sundodgers," as in 1922, the students voted to change the mascot to "Huskies." It was also the first season of the tenure of coach Enoch Bagshaw, the Welsh-born World War I veteran and former UW star player who, despite finishing with just a 3-4-1 record in 1921, would lead the UW to a 63-22-6 mark over his nine seasons in charge.
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While, understandably, detailed information on that 1921 game is scarce, it does receive the following (un-edited) write-up in the 1922 edition of the UW's Tyee Yearbook: "Despite the fact that the score shows a defeat, Washington won a moral victory over the highly-touted Penn State eleven. Coach Hugo Bezdek's Nittany Lions came out of the East with an unbroken string of victories against the strongest teams of their section. All the dope pointed to a walk-away for the eastern team. But the dope did not materialize. Penn state had a wonderful team. Killinger, the all-American back, ably aided by his team mates, shone and flashed. They outweighed Washington and presented a smoother running football machine. But in the face of all of this, Washington's plucky skipper, Ray Eckmann, put the ball over for one hard-earned touchdown. He ran past the 50-yard line on the kick-off before he was stopped. Then it was that another all-American back, playing with the weaker team, time after time punctured the heavy Penn State line, and with straight old-time football forced the play."
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It would take another 62 years before the UW and Penn State met again, in the 1983 Aloha Bowl in Honolulu. The Nittany Lions earned a 13-10 win over the UW in front of 37,212 at Aloha Stadium on Christmas Day, scoring 10 points in the final quarter to overcome the Dawgs. Both teams had entered the season with higher hopes. Penn State was the defending national champion and opened the season at No. 4, while Washington lost to Washington State in the final game of the regular season to drop out of the top 25 for the first time in two years. After a Penn State field goal in the first quarter, the Huskies took the lead on a 57-yard punt return from Danny Greene. Just before halftime, a Jeff Jaeger field goal made it 10-3. The Nittany Lions' Nick Gancitano kicked a 49-yard field goal early in the fourth and D.J. Dozier scored on a two-yard run to provide his team with the win.
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Much more recently, the Huskies and Lions met in the 2017 Fiesta Bowl, the second of three straight New Years Six bowl games for the Huskies. That game, played on Dec. 30, 2017, ran Penn State's all-time record vs. the Huskies to 3-0, as Saquon Barkley and Trace McSorley led the Nittany Lions to a 35-28 win. McSorley hit DaeSean Hamilton with a 48-yard TD pass and Barkley scored on a two-yard run to take a 14-0 lead. UW QB Jake Browning scored a one-yard rushing TD to cut it to 14-7, but a one-yard run from Miles Sanders and a 92-yard sprint from Barkley opened a 28-7 gap in the second quarter. Myles Gaskin's 13-yard run cut it to 28-14 at halftime. In the third quarter, Browning hit Aaron Fuller to with a 28-yard pass, but McSorley and Hamilton connected again to make it 35-21, Penn State. UW got a late rushing TD from Gaskin to close the final gap to 35-28.
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Two years ago, in the Huskies' first season as a member of the Big Ten Conference, Washington traveled to State College for a "white-out" game on Nov. 9, 2004. The No. 6-ranked Nittany Lions earned a 35-6 victory, limiting the Dawgs to a pair of field goals in 110,233 fans. Penn State took a 28-0 lead into the locker room at halftime, and the final two quarters were comparatively quiet. Kaytron Allen (98) and Corey Smith (95) led the way for the Lions, each nearly reaching 100 yards rushing. Penn State QB Drew Allar was 20-for-28 for 220 yards and a TD.
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HUSKY STADIUM: The Oregon game on Nov. 5, 2011, marked the final game in Husky Stadium prior to major renovations that were completed in summer, 2013. The Huskies re-opened their home field with a 38-6 win over then-No. 19 Boise State on Aug. 31, 2013. The 2026 season marks the 106th season of play in Husky Stadium. Original construction on the facility was completed in 1920 when Washington played one game in the new campus facility. UW's all-time record in Husky Stadium stands at 425-189-21 (.686). Washington is 71-20 (.780) in home games since the stadium re-opened in 2013.
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QUICK HITTERS:Â After playing four home games over the course of 21 days (Sept. 6-26) to begin the season, UW played just one home game (Oct. 9 vs. Iowa) over a span of 41 days (Sept. 27-Nov. 6) ... following the Iowa game, UW will have gone 28 days before playing host to Penn State on Saturday ... Husky punter Hunter Green is No. 6 in the FBS and No. 1 in the Big Ten in punting average (48.1 yard per punt, on pace for No. 2 in UW history) ... Green's career average of 46.0 (on 239 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 ... Washington has had five different first-year players start multiple games this year: DL Derek Colman-Brusa, EDGE Ramzak Fruean, OT Kodi Greene, CB Jeron Jones, and RB Brian Bonner Jr. ... those five have combined to make 32 starts in 2026 ... 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 this season ... UW QB Demond Williams Jr. surpassed 1,000 career rushing yards in the Utah State game, and now has 1,104 ... he's the third UW QB to rush for 1,000 career yards, joining Jake Locker (1,939) and Marques Tuiasosopo (1,495).
Â
TELEVISION: The UW-Penn State game will air on FS1, with Dan Hellie and Robert Smith on the call. For more info, go to: foxsports.com/live.
Â
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 175 or 232.
Â
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.
Â
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.
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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.
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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.
Â
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:
Â
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
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HUSKIES vs. NITTANY LIONS HISTORY: Washington and Penn State have met just four times on the gridiron – a 1921 game in Seattle, in the 1983 Aloha Bowl, in the 2017 Fiesta Bowl and, most recently, in a regular-season game in Happy Valley in 2024. The Nittany Lions have won all four. In the 1921 game, played Dec. 3 at one-year-old Husky Stadium (not yet known by that name), Penn State earned a 21-7 win in front of 13,827 fans. That year was the last year that the University of Washington teams were known as the "Sundodgers," as in 1922, the students voted to change the mascot to "Huskies." It was also the first season of the tenure of coach Enoch Bagshaw, the Welsh-born World War I veteran and former UW star player who, despite finishing with just a 3-4-1 record in 1921, would lead the UW to a 63-22-6 mark over his nine seasons in charge.
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While, understandably, detailed information on that 1921 game is scarce, it does receive the following (un-edited) write-up in the 1922 edition of the UW's Tyee Yearbook: "Despite the fact that the score shows a defeat, Washington won a moral victory over the highly-touted Penn State eleven. Coach Hugo Bezdek's Nittany Lions came out of the East with an unbroken string of victories against the strongest teams of their section. All the dope pointed to a walk-away for the eastern team. But the dope did not materialize. Penn state had a wonderful team. Killinger, the all-American back, ably aided by his team mates, shone and flashed. They outweighed Washington and presented a smoother running football machine. But in the face of all of this, Washington's plucky skipper, Ray Eckmann, put the ball over for one hard-earned touchdown. He ran past the 50-yard line on the kick-off before he was stopped. Then it was that another all-American back, playing with the weaker team, time after time punctured the heavy Penn State line, and with straight old-time football forced the play."
Â
It would take another 62 years before the UW and Penn State met again, in the 1983 Aloha Bowl in Honolulu. The Nittany Lions earned a 13-10 win over the UW in front of 37,212 at Aloha Stadium on Christmas Day, scoring 10 points in the final quarter to overcome the Dawgs. Both teams had entered the season with higher hopes. Penn State was the defending national champion and opened the season at No. 4, while Washington lost to Washington State in the final game of the regular season to drop out of the top 25 for the first time in two years. After a Penn State field goal in the first quarter, the Huskies took the lead on a 57-yard punt return from Danny Greene. Just before halftime, a Jeff Jaeger field goal made it 10-3. The Nittany Lions' Nick Gancitano kicked a 49-yard field goal early in the fourth and D.J. Dozier scored on a two-yard run to provide his team with the win.
Â
Much more recently, the Huskies and Lions met in the 2017 Fiesta Bowl, the second of three straight New Years Six bowl games for the Huskies. That game, played on Dec. 30, 2017, ran Penn State's all-time record vs. the Huskies to 3-0, as Saquon Barkley and Trace McSorley led the Nittany Lions to a 35-28 win. McSorley hit DaeSean Hamilton with a 48-yard TD pass and Barkley scored on a two-yard run to take a 14-0 lead. UW QB Jake Browning scored a one-yard rushing TD to cut it to 14-7, but a one-yard run from Miles Sanders and a 92-yard sprint from Barkley opened a 28-7 gap in the second quarter. Myles Gaskin's 13-yard run cut it to 28-14 at halftime. In the third quarter, Browning hit Aaron Fuller to with a 28-yard pass, but McSorley and Hamilton connected again to make it 35-21, Penn State. UW got a late rushing TD from Gaskin to close the final gap to 35-28.
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Two years ago, in the Huskies' first season as a member of the Big Ten Conference, Washington traveled to State College for a "white-out" game on Nov. 9, 2004. The No. 6-ranked Nittany Lions earned a 35-6 victory, limiting the Dawgs to a pair of field goals in 110,233 fans. Penn State took a 28-0 lead into the locker room at halftime, and the final two quarters were comparatively quiet. Kaytron Allen (98) and Corey Smith (95) led the way for the Lions, each nearly reaching 100 yards rushing. Penn State QB Drew Allar was 20-for-28 for 220 yards and a TD.
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HUSKY STADIUM: The Oregon game on Nov. 5, 2011, marked the final game in Husky Stadium prior to major renovations that were completed in summer, 2013. The Huskies re-opened their home field with a 38-6 win over then-No. 19 Boise State on Aug. 31, 2013. The 2026 season marks the 106th season of play in Husky Stadium. Original construction on the facility was completed in 1920 when Washington played one game in the new campus facility. UW's all-time record in Husky Stadium stands at 425-189-21 (.686). Washington is 71-20 (.780) in home games since the stadium re-opened in 2013.
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Players Mentioned
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/ FootballSunday, November 01
Sunday, November 01
Sunday, November 01
Sunday, November 01
