There’s the season opener, and then there’s the conference opener.
For No. 14 Washington and California, those games will come in consecutive weeks.
After both won last weekend against Football Championship Subdivision teams, the Golden Bears and Huskies will meet in a Pacific-12 Conference contest Saturday night in Seattle.
“It was a good day one,” Washington coach Chris Petersen said after a 47-14 victory against Eastern Washington. “I don’t want to move on too fast, but the challenge is going to be a lot different next week.”
The Golden Bears defeated UC Davis 27-13, rallying from an early 10-point deficit.
“As a defense, we played horrible. We’re not ready,” Cal linebacker Evan Weaver said. “But we will be ready next Saturday. You can believe that. Right now it’s not looking good. But we’ll get it right. Then we’ll fly up there and we’ll beat them. That’s what we do. We win games. We figure it out.”
The Huskies have won eight of the past 10 meetings between the schools, although they took a 12-10 loss in Berkeley, Calif., last season in a game in which Petersen temporarily benched four-year starting quarterback Jake Browning.
With Browning gone, the Huskies have turned to Jacob Eason, a transfer from Georgia.
Eason was the Gatorade National Player of the Year in 2015 at nearby Lake Stevens (Wash.) High School and won the starting job as a true freshman at Georgia in 2016, passing for 2,430 yards and 16 touchdowns. But he sustained a knee injury in the 2017 opener and was supplanted by freshman Jake Fromm, who led the Bulldogs to the national championship game.
Eason completed 27 of 36 passes for 349 yards and four touchdowns against Eastern Washington.
“It was fun to do and fun to be a part of and super exciting for me,” Eason said.
Two of those touchdowns went to Aaron Fuller, who made a one-handed catch in the corner of the end zone as the Huskies took a 21-0 lead after one quarter.
“I was eager to see what (Eason) would do because I haven’t seen him play and been in games, and things like that,” Fuller said. “There was maybe a small bit of doubt just to see how he would control the offense and things like that, but I never doubted his arm or his upside. It was cool to see.”
The biggest concern for the Huskies was when preseason All-America center Nick Harris went down with an apparent left leg injury in the first quarter. He didn’t return, and Petersen listed him as week-to-week.
The Golden Bears beat UC Davis despite committing four turnovers, including one on the opening kickoff.
Cal running back Christopher Brown Jr. rushed for 197 yards and a touchdown on 36 carries in his first start.
“We knew Chris would get the ball a lot,” Cal coach Justin Wilcox said. “That’s what we expect of him. He’s a big, physical guy, and this is his type of game. Give it to him and let him break tackles. Probably more touches and more yards than he had all last year. He’s been preparing for this.”
Golden Bears quarterback Chase Garbers was 16 of 28 for 238 yards and two touchdowns, both to Kekoa Crawford.
“We weren’t in sync, but it wasn’t panic,” Wilcox said. “We battled back and got into some rhythm on both sides of the ball. We just made it really difficult on ourselves at times.”
