SEATTLE — This month marks 100 years since the University of Washington football team played in their first-ever bowl game. The anniversary comes as the team prepares to play in their first College Football Playoff National Championship game in more than 30 years.
On Jan. 1, 1924, the Huskies tied the Navy Midshipmen 14-14 in the Rose Bowl. In the University of Washington’s Tyee yearbook, Sports Editor Jack Hohenberg wrote that “Athletics during the 1923-24 season took a new lease of life at the University of Washington. Coach Enoch Bagshaw developed a machine-like football team last fall that ran away with every game except one.”
In another section of the yearbook, Tom Olsen wrote, “Washington’s 1923 eleven won national fame for itself and for its school, and climaxed the season with a historic intersectional battle against the Naval Academy, at Pasadena, resulting in a 14 to 14 tie.”
Archives show photos from 1923-1924 UW football team games
The New Year's Day game in 1924 brought a crowd of 45,000 people. Olsen wrote in the yearbook, “That 14-14 score indicates the character of the game. The Navy swept to a touchdown first. They had brought the ball down to Washington’s one-yard line, when the Huskies got the ball on downs after a great fight.”
The Huskies were down 14-7 in the third quarter but were able to tie it up in the fourth with a trick play that Olsen said no one saw coming.
“A trick pass to Jim Bryan from Freddy Abel, however, caught the Admirals off their guard and when the red headed guard dumped the ball on the ground behind the Navy goal line the score was tied," according to the yearbook.
The team had an opportunity to win the game with an extra point, but the UW kicker missed. Olsen wrote in the last line of the yearbook, “A tricky wind caught the ball and whisked it a bare three feet away from the goal line. The game ended a minute later.”
Olsen said in his writing that in that 1923-24 season, UW “piled up 328 points to their opponents’ 58.” Only two teams scored 14 points against that team that year: Montana and the Navy.
The team’s send-off to the Rose Bowl in California sounded like one for records. Olsen wrote, “No Washington athletic team ever received a more impressive send-off…” He continued, “Two thousand howling students massed about the entrance of Meany Hall, prior to the team’s departure for the depot downtown.”
Funnily enough, their last regular season game of the season that year was against Oregon, the same matchup as this year. UW walked away with a 26-7 win in 1923. This year’s match-up was a little closer, with UW beating Oregon 34 to 31.
Husky history proves to repeat itself, leaving fans from every decade yelling, “Go Dawgs!”