"Haunted" is never a word you want to hear yourself saying 23 years after the event, but that's the one former Huskies football coach Rick Neuheisel chose Tuesday. He was reliving UW's road game vs. UCLA in 1999 with Chuck Powell and Bucky Jacobsen on 93.3 KJR-FM, acutely aware that he let a trip to the Rose Bowl slip away.
The contest took place at the Rose Bowl, where Washington has struggled mightily against the Bruins over the past two and a half decades regardless of records. And that year was consistent with results of late, as a 4-7 UCLA squad beat the Huskies 23-20 in overtime, preventing them from returning to Pasadena on Jan. 1.
"We'd have gone to a Rose Bowl that year if we don't find a way to lose that game," Neuheisel said.
The backdrop of the San Gabriels may be majestic to the average fan taking in some football at the Rose Bowl, but it's the Bruins who play mountain to the Huskies' molehill most the time they square off in Southern California.
Here's a history over the past 25 years that sledgehammers the point home.
1997: UCLA 52, Washington 28
1999: UCLA 23, Washington 20
2001: UCLA 35, Washington 13
2003: UCLA 46, Washington 16
2005: UCLA 21, Washington 17
2007: UCLA 44, Washington 31
2009: UCLA 24, Washington 23
2013: UCLA 41, Washington 31
And then, finally, in 2018 — when the Huskies won the Pac-12 title: Washington 31, UCLA 24.
That was eight consecutive Bruins victories at home before UW finally broke through. And even that most recent win in Pasadena provided far more peril than most would have expected.
The Bruins were 3-9 that season and 0-4 when they took on the Huskies. They were a week removed from losing by 22 to Colorado, and two weeks from falling by 24 to Fresno State. And yet, despite trailing 24-7 at halftime, UCLA got to within seven points of the 10th-ranked Huskies and had a possession to tie the score in the fourth quarter before being forced to punt.
"I'm glad to get outta here," then-Huskies coach Chris Petersen said after the game.
Current Huskies coach Kalen DeBoer is happy to return. Before being lured to Montlake in late November, he led Fresno State to a win at UCLA last season, when the Bulldogs found the end zone with 14 seconds left to down the Bruins 40-37.
The stakes are higher this time, as his Huskies (4-0, 1-0 Pac-12) look primed to make a run at a title in a Power Five conference. And though his team is favored by two and a half points against 4-0 UCLA, DeBoer knows the odds — just like Fresno State's victory last year — are irrelevant.
"It doesn't really mean anything. These are two different teams that are lining up against each other," he said.
But this Huskies team looks way different than it did last year, when it tumbled to 4-8 in coach Jimmy Lake's only full season as coach. The Huskies have a quarterback in Michael Penix Jr. — a fringe Heisman Trophy candidate at the moment — whose country-leading 1,388 passing yards are coming on 9.7 yards per attempt and who has thrown 12 touchdown passes against one interception. They have a pancake machine of an offensive line, which has helped running back Wayne Taulapapa rush for 310 yards on 48 carries — good for 6.4 yards a pop. And they have a pulverizing pass rush, which tallied eight sacks last week vs. Stanford and is fifth in the country at 3.7 sacks per game.
The Mariners look all but assured to end their 21-year postseason drought, but the town has to have one eye on these Huskies, who haven't had a morsel of trouble with any of their opponents. It's just that SoCal rarely produced Hollywood endings for UW — at least if UCLA is on the other side of the ball.
The Bruins' four wins this season haven't come against world beaters. Their 45-17-victory last week was vs. 0-4 Colorado, and they beat South Alabama of the Sun Belt Conference by just a point the week before.
But there is talent on the Bruins sideline. And perhaps as much as anything, there is history in that stadium against UW.
There may not be many fans to intimidate the Huskies on Saturday, but there are plenty of memories that haunt their program — and perhaps another on its way if they lose even the slightest bit of focus.
