Washington finally gets Minnesota back on the schedule this Saturday night, and the matchup comes with a long gap attached to it. The Huskies and Golden Gophers haven’t met in 49 years, even though Washington has been in the Big Ten for more than two seasons. This one kicks off the conference slate for Washington, which enters at 3-0, while Minnesota comes in at 2-1.
Kickoff is set for 8:00 p.m. PT at Husky Stadium, and FOX will carry the game.
Jack Kizer and Mark Helfrich will be on the broadcast, and online viewing information is available through www.foxsports.com/live. Fans can also watch through Xfinity, Charter Spectrum, Cox, or DISH Network with the proper subscription.
For Washington radio coverage, SiriusXM will air the game on channel 176 or 231. The Washington IMG College Network will also carry the broadcast, led by KJR 93.3 FM in Seattle and a statewide slate of Northwest affiliates.
The full broadcast is available on the Huskies Gameday mobile app and the Varsity app. All Washington football games air on the Washington Sports Network from Learfield, with Elise Woodward handling play-by-play, former Husky tight end Cameron Cleeland as analyst, and Dave Mahler on the sidelines.
Radio coverage begins four hours before kickoff on KJR with “Husky Gameday” from The Zone for home games, while statewide coverage on the 17-station network starts two hours before kickoff. The Husky Football Coaches Show airs every Monday at 6:00 p.m.
PT from Eureka! Restaurant in University Village.
This is Washington’s fourth straight home game to open the 2026 season. After this one, the Huskies head to USC on Oct. 3 for their first road game. Washington is ranked No. 23 in the USA Today coaches’ poll and sits one spot outside the latest AP Top 25.
The history between these teams goes back to 1936 and includes 17 meetings from 1936 through 1977. Minnesota leads the series 10-7, and the lone bowl-game meeting came in the 1961 Rose Bowl.
The Gophers won the first seven games in the series, but Washington has gone 7-3 since then. The teams’ first meeting came in Washington’s 1936 season opener at Husky Stadium, when Minnesota beat the Huskies 14-7 before 40,000 fans.
Bernie Bierman’s Gophers broke a 7-7 tie with a fourth-quarter touchdown pass from Andy Uram to Ray King, and Minnesota went on to finish 7-1 and win the national title. Washington finished 7-2-1 and was ranked No. 5 in the final AP poll.
The Gophers also beat Washington 15-0 in 1938 in the Twin Cities and 19-14 in 1940 at Memorial Stadium. Minnesota’s edge continued through the 1940s with wins in 1941, 1947, 1948, and 1949.
Washington finally turned the series around with four straight wins starting in 1950, beginning with a 28-13 upset of No. 18 Minnesota in front of a record crowd of 49,704 at Husky Stadium.
Hugh McElhenny ran for 90 yards and a touchdown, while Don Heinrich completed 10 of 20 passes for 91 yards.
McElhenny was again central in Washington’s 25-20 win in Minneapolis in 1951, rushing for 119 yards and scoring three times. The Huskies then beat Minnesota 19-13 in Seattle in 1952 and 30-0 in Minneapolis in 1955. Minnesota answered with wins in 1956 and 1957 before Washington closed that stretch with a 24-21 victory in Seattle in 1958.
The teams met once more on Jan. 2, 1961, in the Rose Bowl, where No. 6 Washington beat No.
1 Minnesota 17-7. Bob Schloredt earned Rose Bowl MVP for the second straight season, rushing for one touchdown and passing for the other.
With no polls after the regular season at the time, Minnesota claimed the AP and UPI national championship, while Washington claims the Helms Foundation title for 1960.
Their last home-and-home series came in 1976 and 1977. Washington won 38-7 in Seattle in 1976, and Minnesota took the rematch 19-17 in 1977.
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