The Big Ten expanding and absorbing teams from the West Coast has led to a number of interesting scheduling quirks. There’s the very notable deal with the tiebreakers and trying to make it to the Big Ten championship game that got plenty of people’s attention last season. There’s also the whole deal around the timing of bye weeks and the way teams get to rest.
Weirdly enough, the Washington Huskies’ 2025 football schedule features a rather early bye week as Jedd Fisch and the Huskies will be taking their first week to rest in week three of the 2025 college football season.
So, after taking on the, uh, not all that daunting challenges that Colorado State and UC Davis provide, Washington will get to take a brief break before getting into a pretty intriguing batch of games, including a fun rivalry matchup.
Washington Huskies football: When is UW’s first bye week in 2025?
After taking some time off in week three, Washington will head from its bye week into a rivalry matchup against the Washington State Cougars in Pullman for the classic Apple Cup (that is happening at a time of year that certainly isn’t typical for this rivalry).
From there, Washington gets to face off against the Ohio State Buckeyes back in Seattle on September 27. Then the Huskies will head all the way across the country to play the Maryland Terrapins. It’s a weird batch of games that could be pretty tough.
So, there’s something to be said for that early bye week. Maybe it can help Jedd Fisch and his staff find some sort of strategic advantage by providing the UW coaching staff with a bit of additional time to prep for the rivalry matchup and then the huge home game against the defending national champs that follows the Apple Cup.
I don’t know. What I do know is that week three bye weeks are weird. But here’s to hoping that this bye week will help the Huskies out a bit this coming season.