Flashback Friday: Reliving the 2019 Washington Huskies football season opener
By Ethan Lee
To get the 2024 Washington Huskies football season underway, Jedd Fisch and the Huskies are bringing the Weber State Wildcats to Seattle. It’s been a few years since Washington has started a season on August 31, but this isn’t unprecedented.
Let’s take a look at the last time Washington faced a team on the final day of August. And so, let’s examine Washington’s 2019 season opener against the Eastern Washington Eagles.
Washington Huskies football history: Huskies crush Eastern Washington in 2019 season opener
Chris Petersen led the Washington Huskies back in 2019 and was able to get the season started off strong with a dominant win over the Eastern Washington Eagles in Husky Stadium. With Jacob Eason starting at quarterback for the Huskies, Washington’s offense thrived.
Eason was effective and made his mark in the season opener. He managed to throw for 349 yards and four touchdowns all while completing 27 of his 36 passes.
Eason also managed to connect with eight different pass catchers in the process and Andre Baccellia led the way with 5 catches for 84 yards and a touchdown. Hunter Bryant caught six passes for 81 yards while Aaron Fuller hauled in 5 receptions for 73 yards and two more scores.
On the ground, Richard Newton added 91 yards and another touchdown on 12 carries, which is good for 7.6 yards per carry.
All around, that’s a pretty strong showing for Washington’s offense.
On the defensive side of things, Washington managed to stifle the Eagles’ offense throughout much of the game. Eastern Washington only mustered 63 rushing yards and the Huskies sacked Eagles quarterback Eric Barriere four different times. Myles Bryant totaled eight tackles (one of which was for a loss).
Washington claimed a 28-0 lead pretty quickly and then was able to cruise to victory over Eastern Washington by a score of 47-14. Here’s to hoping that the 2024 season opener against an FCS foe goes in a similar manner.