EUGENE, Ore. -- Somewhere, the most optimistic Washington Huskies fan -- the person who cheered with abandon during the 2008 "Crapple Cup," a loss at Washington State that completed a winless season; the person who told everyone who would listen that, "This is the year we're gonna beat Oregon!" for 12 consecutive autumns -- is tempering his euphoria, taking off his purple-shaded glasses and whispering, "I never saw this coming."

During the Huskies' preseason of hype, everyone saw those first two weekends of October -- first, Stanford at home and then Oregon on the road -- as the red-letter dates, the put-up-or-shut-up games. That was the measuring stick. Those teams had gone 21-2 against the Huskies since 2004, and they'd won every Pac-12 title since the conference expanded in 2011.

And Washington drubbed them by a combined score of 114-27.

The Huskies manhandled Stanford, notorious bullies at the line of scrimmage, 44-6, piling up eight sacks without needing to blitz. Then they went flashy offensive fancy-pants in Autzen Stadium, hanging 70 on the Ducks, making the nation's fastest team look like it was stuck in orange sauce.

Oregon has never scored that much against the Huskies, even when Chip Kelly's gigantic football brain resided in Eugene. It's the most an opponent has scored against Oregon since Texas scored 71 the day before the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor. (Germans? Forget it, the Huskies are rolling. That’s an "Animal House" reference, people...)

Not a single Washington fan expected the first six games to play out this well. Oh, they were hopeful. Perhaps some even envisioned a 6-0 start and College Football Playoff contention. But they didn't expect sophomore quarterback Jake Browning to become a serious Heisman Trophy candidate after tying a Pac-12 record with eight touchdowns in a blowout win against those hated Ducks. They didn't expect a 35.3 average margin of victory due to a scoring offense (49.5 points per game) and scoring defense (14.2 ppg) ranking among the nation's top-six.

After dramatically exiting the hell that was a 12-game losing streak to Oregon in which the average margin of defeat was nearly 24 points and The Seattle Times calculated the Huskies led for a grand total of 8 minutes and 11 seconds, Washington also rendered its Northwest rivals into full-on crisis mode.

A rivalry is not only about rooting for someone, it's also about rooting against someone. Washington adherents by and large will take sadistic glee in seeing Oregon fans erupting over the Ducks' sudden downturn, demanding that coach Mark Helfrich and his staff be fired. While Huskies coach Chris Petersen seemed legitimately pained at this prospect -- he and Helfrich are tight -- it's a cold-blooded business and Washington benefits from the Ducks' seeming collapse.

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The Huskies pointed to this two-game stretch against Stanford and Oregon as their true measuring stick. Any more questions?

One of the newfangled things in college football is the emphasis (perhaps overemphasis) on treating every opponent the same. As Kelly would insist, it's best to look at each foe as a "nameless, faceless opponent." Though Washington mostly takes on this attitude with Petersen, it was pretty obvious that wasn't the case this week. Petersen made that clear when he didn't allow players to talk to the media.

It's hard to question his decision when you look at the result.

“I’m just glad I don’t have to talk about the streak -- I don’t have to answer that [anymore]," Petersen said in his typically unemotional way. "That’s probably the No. 1 thing I’ve been asked about since the day I got to Seattle. So that’s why I’m really happy -- I don’t have to answer that question.”

Among Petersen's players after the game, the range of unhinged emotion and chill was pretty wide. But no one denied how important this game was for the long-frustrated fan base or for former players who winced at the decade-plus power shift in the region and conference.

“Oh, it feels incredible," said offensive lineman Kaleb McGary, looking as though he could leap into the air and click his heels together four times. "Oh my gosh. It feels phenomenal. We’re going to enjoy this one. This is personal. This one was for all the Dawgs, man.”

The schedule now does the Huskies a favor. They get a bye this week to enjoy themselves and catch their breath and then they play Oregon State, a vastly improved squad coming off an upset overtime win against California but still the overwhelming favorite to finish last in the North Division. The next big test is Oct. 29 at Utah, a game that might match the conference's only two ranked teams, at least based on the way things are going at present.

Ducks fans are used to their team trucking opponents, not the other way around. Troy Wayrynen/USA TODAY Sports

Oregon also gets the week off, and there's sure to be some program-wide navel-gazing. While the belief that the Ducks would win at least 10 games every season and play for a national title every few years is a deluded absurdity, yielding a combined 121 points against Northwest rivals on consecutive weekends to faceplant into a four-game losing streak isn't something that can be ignored.

On Oct. 7, the Huskies-mocking Twitter account "The Last Time UW Beat UO" posted its count of days: 4,723. Another day and a 70-21 whipping later, it posted the scene from "Titanic" when the musicians gathered stoically aboard the sinking luxury liner to play the hymn "Nearer My God to Thee."

"Gentlemen, I bid you farewell," the lead violinist said.

Programs can sink in college football. Good ones rise again. Sometimes almost immediately. Sometimes, as with Washington, the wait eclipses a decade and a half. Even the rich and privileged can struggle to regain their footing (see: Texas).

Each course happens for an array of reasons, both subtle and obvious.

Suffice it to say, this is Oregon's lowest point in more than a decade. Washington's present high exceeds its most optimistic preseason expectation. Yet both programs are now asking the same general question, though with differing degrees of enthusiasm.

What happens next?