Washington beat Oregon, and you had to hear it to believe it

Husky Stadium hasn't seen many like UW's 36-33 victory on Saturday.

Photo courtesy of UW Football.

SEATTLE — Lacking a more relatable comparison, a friend once likened the sideline experience at Husky Stadium — when the game is close, and the seats are filled — to something like an acid trip. The sound crescendos, reverberates and compounds until it’s everywhere around you, a sensation replicable nowhere but maybe a rock concert. But there, you probably already know the setlist. On a most pressurized Saturday afternoon by Lake Washington, there was no telling whether euphoria or heartbreak might await the sellout crowd on the other side of so many temple-pounding moments.

Whether their hoarse throats and headaches might wind up in legion with this stadium’s most joyous days.

Whether Washington might beat Oregon, again, when it felt like it probably wouldn’t.

You could have attended games here for decades without seeing anything like it. Decades could pass before you see anything like it again. 

That might have been true, anyway, even if Camden Lewis’ 43-yard field goal attempt had not wandered just too far to the right as time expired, and even if No. 7 Washington hadn’t plucked from likely defeat this 36-33 victory over No. 8 Oregon before 71,321 fans, and even if a few thousand of them hadn’t packed the turf in celebration. It was a classic, regardless of outcome. But because Lewis did miss, and because Michael Penix Jr. and Rome Odunze connected for the go-ahead touchdown moments prior, Saturday’s affair also will be remembered among UW’s all-time greatest victories here, on the mantle with those your father told you about as a kid.