One of the greatest things about college football is the rivalries that are formed between fanbases. Many of these rivalries go back a few generations at this point and they’re baked into the DNA of regional culture all throughout the United States.
Whether it’s the Egg Bowl between the Mississippi State Bulldogs and Ole Miss Rebels, the Iron Bowl between the Alabama Crimson Tide and Auburn Tigers, or the annual matchup between the Washington Huskies and Oregon Ducks, regional rivalries help make college football special.
And though Jedd Fisch has an abundance of knowledge of pro football and the way things exist and operate at the NFL level, the head coach of the Huskies is still very aware of the way Washington fans and Oregon fans don’t necessarily get along all that well.
Based on what Fisch said in his press conference earlier this week, he has an appreciation for that and for this regional rivalry.
Jedd Fisch notes raised tensions in rivalry between Washington Huskies and Oregon Ducks ahead of Saturday’s matchup
“You catch glimpses of it, it's not hard to know,” Fisch said. “Like I've told our team, it's by region. There's excessive hatred in Auburn vs. Alabama, there's excessive hatred in Michigan vs. Ohio State in the Midwest, and there's certainly excessive hatred in the Pacific Northwest between Washington and Oregon.”
That seems like a fair way of breaking it down. All of those rivalries date back quite some time and feature intense feelings from alumni and fans of their respective teams and schools. And as Fisch notes, that’s not a bad thing.
“That's the beauty of college football and that's the beauty of these games,” Washington’s coach noted.
Now, you don’t necessarily want those tensions and emotions to erupt in a negative way. You want things to be controlled and measured in a fair way as much as possible.
In a recent rivalry game earlier this season, UW wasn’t exactly the most disciplined team ever. There were, uh, a few penalty problems.
“You hope that it just becomes a great football game and you hope that the emotions don't take over, that you wind up becoming undisciplined,” Fisch said. “Or it becomes the penalty fest that we lived through week three of the season.”
Yeah, the Apple Cup loss on a neutral site? That wasn’t Washington’s finest moment of the season. And the Huskies will need to avoid those sorts of issues as they take on the Oregon Ducks in what will be an intriguing matchup between these two rivals.