2021 Pac-12 Football Schedule Released

The 2021 Pac-12 football schedule is coming out a little later this season than normal. But I’m sure most of you will be accepting of that if it’s guaranteed that there aren’t multiple revisions like there were to the 2020 schedule. Husky fans already knew which teams Washington would be playing and where (Montana, Arkansas State, Arizona State, Cal, Oregon, and Washington State at home and Michigan, Arizona, Colorado, Stanford, and Oregon State on the road) but now we know the when. So what are we waiting for?

The first thing every Husky fan does when checking the schedule is to look for the Oregon game. It’s in the first week of November where Washington will be returning home for that game after consecutive road games while Oregon will have just played Colorado at home. It’s not quite Oregon having a bye but I’m sure UW would gladly trade the lead-up to the rivalry game with the Ducks if given the option.

Speaking of those two road games it seems unquestionable that the Huskies will have that be their toughest 4-game stretch of the season. Arizona was awful this past season but with a new head coach and UW’s track record playing on the road in that state it seems clear that playing the Wildcats on a Friday night screams trap game. Then Washington has to go to Stanford which has played the Huskies close (or just outright been better) for the vast majority of the Petersen/Lake eras excepting 2016. Also, Stanford has a bye the week before playing Washington. Fun. For schadenfreude purposes, Oregon plays 2 teams coming off a bye: Cal and Wazzu.

Everyone expects that the UW-Oregon tilt will go a long way in deciding the Pac-12 North title but Arizona State has a legitimate argument for best team in the South and getting them just following Stanford and Oregon is certainly no cakewalk either. Oh, and I’m sure there won’t be anyone nervous about playing Cal at home in the conference opener... Although having it be the 4th overall game of the season and following the game at Michigan means UW should be sufficiently warmed up by then.

We already knew the teams that the Huskies were going to be playing before the schedule announcement but it’s worth noting that USC and Utah are the 2 misses from the Pac-12 South. Those two teams have pretty inarguably been the 2 best teams in that division for the past several years and so missing both of them (plus having 5 conference home games) has to be considered a big advantage for Washington in the divisional race.

We come to the bye placement last because it’s not super consequential this season. Maybe it would be better to have it week 7 than week 6 but there’s not much to complain about in that regard. 3 home games and 2 road games before the bye and 4 home games and 3 road games after the bye.

So now that you’ve seen the full schedule, what do you think?