Kalen DeBoer: Washington is ‘built for this’ in big games

Kalen DeBoer believes his Washington Huskies team proved they were built for anything during their 36-33 victory over the Oregon Ducks.

In arguably the greatest scene of the college football season thus far, Washington came away with a win over Oregon in thrilling fashion, and proved they’re true College Football Playoff contenders. Speaking with the media afterwards, DeBoer explained why the mettle of the Huskies helped lead to a win.

“Man, what a game. First of all, tip of the cap to Oregon. They’ve got a great football team. That was an amazing football game. If there’s one that I’ve been a part of that was bigger or better, I can’t think of it right now,” DeBoer started. “But you know, this moment right now is something that’s really special for our program. Just you know, I think it embodies everything that we’ve done, over the last year and a half, two years. And you know, just we keep, we keep saying it — if it’s close, we’re going to find a way to win. We’re built for this. We’re made for this. We’ve been through some things. We learned from them. We take the lessons that we’ve learned and apply them, and you can see it.

“These guys care so much, and man, there’s nothing more special as a football coach than to see these guys just enjoying that moment that we just had out there. They’re going to remember this forever. These games are huge. They will. These are the ones they’re going to talk about. Reunions, whatever happens the rest of the season, you know that’ll add to it, but they’re going to be taking about you know, the 2022 game, the 2023 game. Question about, ‘Did it feel like last year?’ It felt exactly like last year. I was thinking the exact same thing on the field. I guess that’s one of the things that actually kept me feeling like, ‘Keep fighting, keep fighting,’ because those are the experiences we’ve been through together, and I know how our players are going to respond, and our coaching staff thought the same thing. It just trickles down, each and every day, and in the big moments, like you saw today, our guys just kept fighting.”

With that mentality, Washington will be tough to beat throughout the 2023 season. The Huskies are the favorite in the Pac-12, and rightfully so. We’ll see if they can continue making good on their potential moving forward.