Hawkeyes Headed To Montlake For First Time In 63 Years

Friday, October 9

Seattle, Wash.

6:00 p.m. PT

University of Washington

Iowa

Tickets From $35 - $175

uw defense celebrates vs. washington state 2026

Photo by: Scott Eklund / Red Box Pictures

October 05, 2026 | Football

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THE GAME: After finally having played away from home for the first time in 2026 last Saturday at USC, the Washington football team (3-2 overall, 0-2 Big Ten) returns to Seattle for its fifth home contest in six games this season. On Friday, the Huskies will play host to Iowa (4-1, 1-1) in a 6:00 p.m. game, which will be televised on FOX. The Iowa game will be the Huskies' lone home appearance in a 41-day stretch as the Dawgs won't play on Montlake again until Nov. 7. While UW and Iowa and played four times since (three bowl games and a 2024 trip to Iowa City), Friday's game will mark the Hawkeyes' first visit to Husky Stadium since 1963. Iowa, which opened the season 4-0 before a loss to Ohio State last Saturday, is ranked No. 20 in the latest AP Top 25, and No. 18 in the USA Today Coaches Poll.

QUICK HITTERS: Washington has a 10-1 record since 2010 in non-Saturday home games, a record that includes four wins over ranked opponents ... the lone loss in those 11 games was the final game of the 2021 season, under an interim head coach ... after playing four home games over the course of 21 days (Sept. 6-26) to begin the season, UW will now play just one home game (Iowa) over a span of 41 days (Sept. 27-Nov. 6) ... following the Iowa game, UW won't play at home for 28 days ... Husky punter Hunter Green is No. 4 in the FBS and No. 1 in the Big Ten in punting average (47.7 yard per punt, on pace for No. 2 in UW history) ... QB Demond Williams Jr. is 13th in the nation and second in the Big Ten in total offense (303.6 yards per game) ... in the 2026 opener, UW held Washington State to no successful third-down conversion attempts, in 11 tries ... the last time a Husky opponent failed to convert a single third-down conversion in a game was in the Huskies' memorable, 16-13 win over USC in 2009 ... UW started four first-year players in the WSU game, three on defense (edge Ramzak Fruean, defensive tackle Derek Colman-Brusa and nickelback Jeron Jones) and one on offense (left tackle Kodi Greene) ... another, RB Brian Bonner Jr., started vs. Utah State ... all five of those first-year players has started each of the last three games as well ... UW QB Demond Williams Jr. surpassed 1,000 career rushing yards in the Utah State game, and now has 1,084 ... he's the third UW QB to rush for 1,000 career yards, joining Jake Locker (1,939) and Marques Tuiasosopo (1,495).

TELEVISION: The UW-Iowa game will air on FOX television, with Connor Onion, Robert Griffin III and Alexa Landestoy on the call. For more info, go to: www.foxsports.com/live.

RADIO: All Washington football games will air on the Washington Sports Network from Learfield, with Elise Woodward (play by play), former Husky tight end Cameron Cleeland (analyst), and Dave Mahler (sidelines) on the call. Radio coverage begins four hours before kickoff on the network's flagship station – Seattle's SportsRadio KJR 93.3 FM – with "Husky Gameday" live from The Zone for Husky home games. Statewide coverage on the 17-station Washington Sports Network begins two hours before kickoff. The entire broadcast is available worldwide on the Go Huskies mobile app and the Varsity app. The UW broadcast of this game will also air on Sirius/XM channel 257.

ACADEMIC SUCCESS: Washington's football players have continued to perform at the highest academic levels, as the program continues to post impressive cumulative team GPAs. Last school year (2024-25), the UW football team achieved a team grade-point average of 3.31 in both the fall and winter quarters, and then wrapped up the year with a 3.27 in the spring quarter. In the spring quarter, a whopping 31 members of the UW roster earned a place on the Dean's List, and 49 of the players on the 2026 roster were on the Dean's List at least once in 2025-26 (most of them multiple times): Deji Ajose, Xe'ree Alexander, Buddah Al-Uqdah, Aiden Anderson, Dash Beierly, Elijah Brown, Jace Burton, Quaid Carr, D'Aryhian Clemons, Derek Colman-Brusa, Lowen Colman-Brusa, Charlie Crowell, Parker Cross, Decker DeGraaf, Kolt Dieterich, Luke Dunne, Kade Eldridge, Soane Faasolo, Jake Flores, Hunter Green, Kayden Greene, Kodi Greene, Landen Hatchett, Devin Hyde, Justin Hylkema, Ksani Jiles, Jacob Lane, Jayden Limar, Jacob Manu, Kai McClendon, Hunter McKee, Julian McMahan, Bodpegn Miller, John Mills, Ryken Moon, Hayden Moore, Baron Naone, Zaydrius Rainey-Sale, Donovan Robinson, Dylan Robinson, Tyler Robles, Victor Sanchez Hernandez, Champ Taulealea, Sam Vyhlidal, Beck Walker, C.J. Wallace, Isaiah Ward, Jordan Washington, and DeSean Watts.

IN THE CFP ERA: The era of the four-team College Football Playoff is gone, but that 10-season stretch (2014-2023) is instructive in terms of illustrating the teams that operated at the top level of the sport during that timespan, and Washington is one of those teams. Over that 10-year stretch, only 15 different programs earned a berth in the CFP semifinals, and only eight reached the tournament more than once. With two CPF berths in the four-team era (2016 and 2023), Washington is one of those eight, and one of just two programs to reach the four-team CFP under two different head coaches (Oklahoma was the other). Only six teams made more than two appearances: Alabama (8), Clemson (6), Ohio State (5), Oklahoma (4), Georgia (3) and Michigan (3). For what it's worth, six more teams made their CFP debut in the 12-team bracket in 2024, and another five were first-time selections in 2025, but UW still remains one of just 11 teams to have appeared in the CFP more than once, when counting the latest data.

B1G TIME: As has been well documented over the last couple of years, Washington officially joined the Big Ten Conference ahead of the 2024-25 school year, effective on Aug. 2, 2024. The Huskies were joined be fellow former Pac-12 programs Oregon, UCLA and USC in making the move to the B1G, which now includes 18 schools. Washington was one of four founding members of the Pacific Coast Conference (along with Cal, Oregon and Oregon State), and, along with Cal, was one of just two teams that were a part of that league (which changed names to the AAWU, Pac-8, Pac-10 and Pac-12) for the entirety of its full-fledged existence from 1915 through 2026.

CAPTAINS: The following players have been named captains for the 2026 season: Drew Azzopardi, Elinneus Davis, Landen Hatchett, Jacob Manu, Alex McLaughlin, John Mills and Demond Williams Jr. Hatchett and Williams were also captains in 2025. Mills in believed to be the first second-year/sophomore captain in program history.

FUTURE SCHEDULES: In October, 2023, the Big Ten revealed 18 football teams' home and away, conference opponents for the next for the following five seasons (2024-28). Here are the UW's home and road, Big Ten games, for the coming two years:

2027: home – Maryland, Michigan State, Nebraska, Oregon, USC
                  road – Minnesota, Northwestern, Penn State, Rutgers
2028: home – Michigan, Northwestern, UCLA, Wisconsin
                  road – Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Ohio State, Oregon

Non-Saturday Home Games: Washington has fared well at home recently when playing on days other than Saturday, as they'll do this Friday night vs. Iowa. Friday (and Thursday) games started to become a nearly-annual happening on Washington schedules around 2010 and, nearly every year since, the Huskies have played on a non-Saturday (home, road or both). Dating back to a Thursday game vs. UCLA late in the 2010 season, the Huskies have played 11 home games on days other than Saturday and have gone 10-1, with the lone loss coming in the final game of the 2021 season, under an interim head coach. Here's a look at those 11 games:

Thu., Nov. 18, 2010     UCLA   W, 24-7
Thu., Sept. 27, 2012   #8 Stanford (at Lumen Field*)               W, 17-13
Fri., Nov. 29, 2013        Washington State         W, 21-17
Fri., Nov. 27, 2015        #23 Washington State                W, 45-10
Fri., Sept. 30, 2016      #10 Stanford   W, 44-6
Fri., Nov. 29, 2019        Washington State         W, 33-13
Fri., Nov. 26, 2021        Washington State         L, 40-13
Fri., Nov. 4, 2022           #24 Oregon State          W, 24-21
Fri., Nov. 15, 2024        UCLA   W, 31-19
Fri., Oct. 10, 2025        Rutgers                W, 34-10
Sun., Sept. 6, 2026      Washington State         W, 24-10
*the entire 2012 home schedule was played at Lumen Field (home of the Seahawks)

HUSKIES vs. HAWKEYES HISTORY: Washington and Iowa have squared off seven times in the two programs' histories – four in the regular season and three (three of the four most recent games) in bowl games. Iowa leads the series with four wins and three losses.

The first meeting came in Seattle in the 1937 opener for both teams, a 14-0 Washington win. The game was the varsity debut for legendary Iowa quarterback Nile Kinnick, who would win the Heisman Trophy two seasons later, in 1939. Washington quarterback Fritz Waskowitz led the UW with a pair of touchdown passes, to Dick Johnson and Tom Sheldrake. Coincidentally, both Kinnick and Waskowitz would go on to lose their lives in World War II. Kinnick perished in an airplane crash while training off the coast of Venezuela in 1943, while Waskowitz, piloting a bomber, was shot down by Japanese fire in the Pacific in 1942. The '37 UW captain was known for leading the Huskies to a 0-0 tie with No. 1 Cal in Berkeley that season, the Bears' only blemish in their most recent national championship season.

Washington and Iowa didn't meet again until Oct. 5, 1963, when the Hawkeyes returned to Seattle and handed the Huskies their third straight loss to open the season (UW won six of its next seven games and earned a Rose Bowl berth). Iowa was led by quarterback Jay Roberts, who rushed for one touchdown and passed for another in a 17-7 win, while fullback Charlie Browning ran for UW's only score. The following season, in the Huskies' lone trip to Iowa City prior to 2024, the Hawkeyes picked up a 28-18 win over No. 10 UW. The Huskies trailed, 14-0, before a safety and touchdown runs from Browning and Ron Medved gave the visitors a 15-14 lead, extended to 18-14 by a field goal just before halftime. However, after a scoreless third quarter, Iowa QB Gary Snook completed his second TD pass of the game to put the home team on top. After a fumble on the ensuring UW drive, Snook ran in for the final score of the game.

Following those two meetings in the 1960s, the teams didn't meet again until the 1982 Rose Bowl game. The Huskies, underdogs going in, shut out the Hawkeyes, 28-0, behind freshman Jacque Robinson, the game's MVP. Robinson rushed for 142 yards and two touchdowns while the Husky defense forced five turnovers. Nine years later, they met again, in the 1991 Rose Bowl, following the 1990 season, the first of three straight Rose Bowls for the Huskies. Washington, which had stumbled vs. UCLA in the next-to-last game of the regular season to spoil a possible national title bid, won a shootout, 46-34. Husky QB Mark Brunell scored two touchdowns each, rushing and passing, to earn MVP, while tailback Greg Lewis, the Doak Walker Award winner who'd missed the last month rehabbing a knee injury, rushed for 128 yards. Washington also scored on a 27-yard blocked punt return from Dana Hall and a 37-yard interception return from Charles Mincy.

The most recent UW-Iowa game prior to the Huskies joining the Big Ten was 31 years ago, at the 1995 Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas, where the Hawkeyes beat the Pac-10 co-champs, 38-18. Iowa led the game 24-0 before UW finally got on the scoreboard in the third quarter, and were up 38-6 before two, late Husky scores. Iowa backs Sedrick Shaw (135 yards) and Tavian Banks (122) each rushed for 100 yards in the win.

The Huskies and Hawkeyes have met once since the Dawgs moved to the Big Ten, on Oct. 12, 2024, in Iowa City. Led by 166 rushing yards from Kaleb Johnson, the Hawkeyes won, 40-16. UW quarterback Will Rogers III passed for 195 yards and then-backup Demond Williams Jr. saw his most extended action to date, completing 12-of-16 attempts while rushing for 23 yards on three carries. Despite the score, UW actually had more first downs, total offense and time of possession than Iowa.

HUSKY STADIUM: The Oregon game on Nov. 5, 2011, marked the final game in Husky Stadium prior to major renovations that were completed in summer, 2013. The Huskies re-opened their home field with a 38-6 win over then-No. 19 Boise State on Aug. 31, 2013. The 2026 season marks the 106th season of play in Husky Stadium. Original construction on the facility was completed in 1920 when Washington played one game in the new campus facility. UW's all-time record in Husky Stadium stands at 425-188-21 (.687). Washington is 71-19 (.789) in home games since the stadium re-opened in 2013.