Dawgs Headed To USC For First Road Game Of 2026

Saturday, October 3

Los Angeles, Calif.

4:30 p.m. PT

University of Washington

USC

UW offense celebrates after a touchdown vs washington state 2026

Photo by: Scott Eklund / Red Box Pictures

September 28, 2026 | Football

Full UW Game Notes (PDF)Gameday Central

THE GAME: After four consecutive home games to open the season, the Washington football team (3-1 overall, 0-1 Big Ten) takes to the road this Saturday, taking on USC (3-1, 0-1) at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Kickoff is at 4:30 p.m. and the game will air live on NBC television. Both teams will be coming off of their first lost of the 2026 season, as the Huskies fell, 27-24, to Minnesota last Saturday in Seattle, and the Trojans lost, 41-27, to Oregon in L.A. The game will mark the 89th meeting between the Dawgs and Trojans, who first met on the gridiron in 1923 and who have been members of the same conference for every season since 1922. The Trojans enter the game ranked No. 18 in both the AP Top 25 and the USA Today Coaches Poll, while Washington is receiving votes in coaches' poll, but is unranked.

QUICK HITTERS: Washington has won three in a row and four of the last five vs. USC ... the Huskies have also won three of their last four games at the Coliseum ... UW has played just two away games vs. USC in the last 14 seasons (2015 and 2023) ... after playing four homes over the course of 21 days (Sept. 6-26) to begin the season, UW will now play just one home game (Oct. 9 vs. Iowa) over a span of 41 days (Sept. 27-Nov. 6) ... Washington ranked fifth in FBS in interceptions (6), 12th in the nation in takeaways (8), and 13th in turnover margin (+1.25 per game) ... Dezmen Roebuck in No. 7 in FBS in receptions per game, while Demond Williams Jr. is No. 8 in total offense ... 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 ... all five of those first-year players started vs. EWU and again vs. Minnesota ... UW QB Demond Williams Jr. surpassed passed 1,000 career rushing yards in the Utah State game, and now has 1,058 ... 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-USC game will air on NBC television, with Noah Eagle, Todd Blackledge and Kathryn Tappen on the call. For more info, go to: https://www.nbcsports.com/watch.

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 84.

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. TROJANS HISTORY: Washington and USC have played one another 88 times since the series began in 1923. The Trojans hold a 52-32-4 series advantage (the 52 USC wins include one that was vacated, a USC win in Seattle in 2005).

Washington won its first-ever meeting against the Trojans, beating USC, 22-0, in Seattle in 1923. When the series re-started in 1927, USC handed the Huskies six straight defeats before Washington reeled off five in a row. The longest streak either way in the series began in 1965, when the Trojans beat Washington for the first time of 10 straight wins.

Due to the way the Pac-12 schedule worked (UW played either UCLA or USC in two-year stretches, and never both in the same year ... the Big Ten schedule also means that UW and USC do not play annually) and due to the 2020 season (UW played just four games), the Huskies and Trojans have met on the football field just seven times in the last 15 seasons, and just three times (2011, 2015, 2023) in the Coliseum over that time span.

That most recent Coliseum meeting was an extraordinary game in 2023, when USC and defending Heisman Trophy winner Caleb Williams and 2023 Heisman runner-up Michael Penix Jr. squared off in an offensive slugfest in L.A., with UW emerging with a 52-42 victory. The game was tied at 7-7, 14-14, 21-21, 28-28, 35-35 and 42-42 before the Huskies outscored the Trojans, 10-0, in the final period. Penix was 22-for-30 for 236 and two scores, but UW back Dillon Johnson was the star of the game, rushing for 256 yards and four TDs on 26 carries. Williams passed for 312 yards and three scores in the loss.

In 2024 in Seattle (the most recent meeting at either team's home venue), Washington pulled off a 26-21 win, as receiver Keith Reynolds scored on a four-yard rush to put UW early in the fourth quarter and then held the Trojans on downs on the visitors' last two drives. Husky QB Will Rogers III passed for 252 yards and Jonah Coleman rushed for 104 yards and two TDs in the win. UW linebacker Carson Bruener posted two interceptions and 12 tackles.

In the most recent meeting prior to 2023, in Seattle in 2019, the Huskies led throughout in a 28-14 victory. An 89-yard run in the third quarter from UW running back Salvon Ahmed was the big play of the day.

The game in Seattle in 2016 was one of the most high-profile games in modern history, with ESPN's College Gameday on campus and the No. 4 Huskies hosting a Trojans squad that had won five in a row. USC won that game, 26-13, holding the Huskies to just 17 rushing yards, perhaps the key stat of the game. The Huskies' lone TD was a 70-yard pass from Jake Browning to John Ross.

The year before (2015) in L.A, the Huskies scored a 17-12 win at then-No. 17 USC in a Thursday night game at the Coliseum. Myles Gaskin rushed for 134 yards and a touchdown while Sidney Jones and Darren Gardenhire notched crucial interceptions.

In the most recent meeting prior to 2015 (UW and USC didn't play one another in 2013 and 2014), in 2012 at CenturyLink Field in Seattle, the Trojans won 24-14, thwarting several late chances for the Huskies to make it close by forcing three fourth-quarter turnovers.

A year prior in L.A., the Trojans broke the UW's two-game win streak in the series with a convincing 40-17 victory. In 2010, Washington posted its second straight victory via late field goal as Erik Folk connected from 32 yards to beat USC, 32-31, on the final play of the game. In 2009 in Seattle, Washington handed No. 3 USC a 16-13 loss as Folk connected on a 22-yard field goal with three seconds left to cap the game-winning drive.