Even when it means nothing, Apple Cup means something

If you buy into the buzz, this Saturday could set the apple industry back worse than an outbreak of sooty blotch.

Then again, calling it “buzz” may be inflating the volume.

Sheesh. And we thought Democrats were depressed.

The general disposition of the state’s college football devotee this week is marooned somewhere between who-gives-a-rip and livor mortis, such is the level of anticipation – or dread – for the 97th meeting of Washington State and Washington, more colloquially known as the Apple Cup.

It seems that neither of the combatant teams have developed any appreciable profiency at the old game this fall – not at all in UW’s case, and not enough in Wazzu’s to accredit the Cougs for a bowl game. The bowl, of course, is the validation of worth in the college world, and seeing as how there’s now one in every sunny destination burg except Dry Prong, La., any team with a competitive pulse can be accommodated.

If you can’t get to a bowl game these days, well, it’s probably Rick Neuheisel’s fault.

Thus the ennui factor for Apple ought-four. Neither school will be resuming the party next month at even so much as the Silicon Valley Bowl, itself not so much a holiday reward as it is an obligation, like listening to the 97th retelling of your uncle’s merchant marine stories over Christmas dinner.

By extension, then, this Apple Cup is supposed to be a plugged nickel, worthless, a pass.

Really?

Well, then a million or more witnesses to any number of Apple Cups before the bowls procreated like cockroaches thank you for invalidating their happy memories.

In answering a different question on Monday – why the Apple Cup moves some to post-game bottle-throwing and others to ordering that students be Maced – WSU linebacker Will Derting unwittingly put his finger on the problem.

“This game’s different,” he said. “People make it out to be bigger than it is.”

And when they can’t, they’re almost at a loss as to what to do with themselves.

This is why inky historians are rushing to the books to learn and relay the last time neither team was in the bowl picture (1993, when the Huskies were on a mysterious non-Neuheisel related probation), the last time neither had a winning record (1976, Don James’ second year and Jackie Sherrill’s only one), and the last time the two of them together were objects of greater pity.

That would be 1969, when the Cougars and Huskies entered the game with but a single win between them – WSU’s 19-18 win in the season opener over Illinois, which itself would go 0-10 that year.

Moe, Curly – meet Larry.

And yet somehow 55,667 dragged themselves out to Husky Stadium to watch that one, though surely it barely edged out regrouting the tub as a Saturday amusement.

Yet surely there was more intrinsic meaning in 1969’s Voyage of the Damned – and who might salvage some dignity from it – than there was just, say, three years ago, when the Cougars and Huskies were jousting for runner-up crumbs. As long as Oregon beat Oregon State two weeks later, somebody was going to the Holiday Bowl and somebody was going to the Sun, and it’s a likely bet that the Apple Cup score is more easily recalled by the participants than the outcome of either of those bowl games.

And even with two Top 25 teams playing that afternoon, it was not exactly keeper football – beginning with the Huskies incurring a 10-yard penalty during the coin flip.

Surely it’s the first time a team with a six-game winning streak in the series is coming into the game as an 11-point underdog.

And while that doesn’t make it No. 1 meeting No. 2, just the way the Huskies have confounded the Cougs lately makes this a conversation piece, if nothing else.

“In 1999 and 2000, we had the best football players,” Husky coach Keith Gilbertson insisted. “Since then it’s been pretty even and the last two years, we’ve been damned lucky to win, to be honest with you.

“The triple overtime thing (in 2002), whether pass was backward or not, John Anderson kicking field goals from Colfax – we were very lucky to win that game. And then last year, we were lucky to have a shot at the end and we throw it to Cory Williams and it’s that far from Erik Coleman batting it out.

“Some years, we had a good team – first or second in our conference – and they were building to what became a great stretch for them. And then we had some incredible luck.”

Now the Huskies are playing their last game for Gilbertson, and if they care enough about him to give him a letterman’s jacket last week, they’re probably going to care a little bit now. Likewise, the Cougars are probably tied up in knots thinking about losing to UW with superior talent the last two or three years, never mind 97 years of snotty putdowns.

Of course, that’s not nearly enough to measure up to the modern demand for hype and spectacle. Indeed, it’s likely ESPN won’t even bother to crawl the score across the bottom of the screen as it airs its feature game between Really Good State and Damned Fine U.

Can we guarantee museum-quality play on Saturday? Well, no.

Fun house play, maybe – replete with mirrors.

It may be harder finding a winner between the Cougs and the Huskies this year than between Rossi and Gregoire.

And maybe it isn’t, as Gilbertson insisted it is most years, “The biggest day in the state of Washington.”

But the fact is, whatever disdain we might have for 1-and-9 meeting 4-and-6, it impacts not at all the outlook of the players.

“I think it’s actually bigger,” Derting said. “This is all we have to concentrate on. We have to get our seniors on their way with a win.

“I think there’s more emotion this year than there has been in the past.”

Sure, maybe he’s confusing desperation with emotion.

But at this point it’s pretty much the same thing.