If they keep losing, I keep doing the picture, simple as that. For God's sake, win 7 games and let us move on already!

When did the rivalry die for you? Was it 31-6? How about 55-34? 43-19? Oh, don’t tell me. You’re one of those people still insisting you despise the Huskies. Not silly-haha hate, but pure, unadulterated loathing that has your blood boiling at the mention of the color purple.

You probably like to kick dead kittens too, huh?

Wanna’ know how I came to the conclusion the rivalry is dead? I’ve spent the last four “Husky weeks” on this blog openly rooting for Washington to play better football.

That’s perverse, but what do you want from me? I miss launching urine bags at people wearing a malamute-adorned sweater. Doing it now just seems rude.

Don’t get me wrong. The rivalry is only dead in the sense your grass won’t grow in the middle of winter. The seed’s still there and the thing has the ability to sprout up faster than you can say “Ted Bundy was a Husky.”

It’ll never happen, though, unless Washington starts winning. No, not those 5-7 “we’re back” seasons. I’m talking about real winning, the kind that makes a Duck fan go into the game thinking, “We could lose today.” The Huskies haven’t been close to that since the redacted years of modern football history, 2002 and 2003.

We’ll go on joking about Jake Locker, laughing at the bad coaching and mocking general ineptitude that is so inept you’re almost impressed with the efficiency at which it operates.

And we’ll do it as long as we have to, Washington. We’re a patient bunch.

But don’t tell me it’s the same thing. It’s not 2000 when a top five Husky team went down at Autzen Stadium. It’s not 1994 when Kenny Wheaton scored. It’s not 1997 when Pat Johnson silenced Husky Stadium with a game-winning play so good, they just call it “The Catch.”

Plain and simple, it just ain’t the same. And so we go on, failing to belligerently berate old ladies in purple for another year. Woe is the rivalry.

Perhaps I’m making too much of it, but have you been to an Oregon game since 1995? Have you downloaded an Oregon ringtone or casually watched a YouTube clip? If so, you’ve seen or heard “The Pick” and anytime you celebrate something that much, eventually, you get bit. First chance? December 3rd. Maybe he’ll try studying abroad.