Apple Cup never lacks for meaning
PULLMAN – Look at today’s 99th Apple Cup from almost any direction, and there is intrigue to be had.
Rivalry game? Check. Bowl bid on the line? Yup. Teams looking for redemption after bad losses last week? Sure. Controversy within a locker room leading up to the game? Absolutely.
Yet, based on the nature of this game between Washington and Washington State, set to kick off at 3:45 p.m. in Martin Stadium, there’s one safe bet.
“Whatever’s happened the last 11 weeks means nothing, honestly,” Cougars quarterback Alex Brink said. “It comes down to this game and this game only.”
While there’s plenty of pride on the line in both locker rooms, this game undoubtedly means more to the home team, as WSU needs one more win to (nearly) assure itself of a bowl appearance in December. A loss would cost the Cougars a winning regular season and send them away with a crushing three-game losing streak to end the year.
“It would be a great relief if we could beat those guys,” said head coach Bill Doba, who has a chance to become the first in WSU history to beat Washington three years in a row. “I think it’s going to be close. Their defense is good. I think it’ll be a defensive ballgame, a low-scoring game.”
The Huskies, meanwhile, are already on a six-game losing streak and a shocking loss to winless Stanford last week cost them any chance of making a bowl game. For them, today’s game is about sending a senior class out with a win – and also about erasing the bad taste left in some mouths by coach Tyrone Willingham’s announcement that he won’t be inviting some fourth-year juniors back in 2007, a move that apparently angered some in the locker room.
“It changes our role in the game, obviously,” senior linebacker Scott White said of the losing streak. “But our mind-set isn’t any different.”
WSU insists that all other subplots disappear with so much riding on the result. While that may be true, Cougars offensive line coach George Yarno – who says two of his five strongest memories in football have come from past Apple Cups – knows that what happens today will have repercussions that last far longer than into bowl season.
“Memories you build in this game last you a lifetime,” he said.