The Best Revenge? Cougs Slip by the Huskies in an Apple Cup Like No Other

No other continuing drama in the state is like the Apple Cup. Because, you know, there’ve been 116 of them.

But never has there been one like the latest one.

After being torn apart by the vicious business currents of big-time college football, the University of Washington entered the season having to rebuild most of its football roster and all of the coaching staff that in January reached the national championship game.

Washington State University, beset by the same business cruelties, entered the season forced to help lead the rebuild of the Pac-12 Conference.

The Huskies had the easier task. The Cougars Saturday established that they are making better progress.

After a dramatic goal-line stand in the final seconds Saturday snuffed inept Washington’s final chance at Lumen Field, WSU coach Jake Dickert took the 24-19 win and made it a platform post-game to beseech the beleaguered Cougars nation. A year of being derided as orphans, leftovers and homeless losers after a ruthless realignment shriveled the Pac-12 to the Pac-2 (WSU and Oregon State) apparently made Dickert feel a need to go all Baptist preacher.

“We’re at such a critical time for Washington State football,” he said, voice catching a little. “If you can’t get behind this team in this moment, I just don’t know what we can do. To bring back (the Apple Cup) trophy to Pullman . . . it’s going to be on the third floor, if anyone wants to see it. I think we might retire this trophy — it’s a Pac-12 trophy. I think that might stay in our place for a long time.

“We have an opportunity to compete for championships. I don’t get my check from Washington State athletics. I get it from Washington State University. The university needs to invest in the athletics program and its football team in every step of the way.

“You’re going to see more days like this . . . this is a rallying cry, a focal point. So Cougs everywhere, we need you.”

As readers of the space may recall, the NCAA, following endless defeats in courtrooms, has officially abandoned amateurism. It knows its sports must become professional. It just doesn’t know how. Meantime, seasons must be played because the masses demand entertainment. The pressure has created such an unregulated dash for cash that smaller-budget programs like WSU use high-profile coaches to do low-rent groveling at times of high emotion.

It’s hard to blame him. Beating Washington in Seattle, which moved to the Big Ten Conference knowing it would leave WSU in the football wilderness, creates no better amplifier. The Cougs need to seize every opportunity to legitimize their ability to run with the big programs. The cause was boosted this week with news that four schools from the Mountain West Conference — San Diego State, Colorado State, Boise State and Fresno State — have agreed to join WSU and Oregon State in 2025. The news was followed by reports that two more schools are near an agreement to join, which would give the re-made entity the eight-member minimum required by the NCAA to certify its conference status.

So the win Saturday moved the big-picture needle for WSU. And also stuck it in the eye of the Huskies, who couldn’t have made more mistakes if they had walked naked into a nunnery.

Sixteen penalties for 135 lost yards — third-most in school history — and an unconscionable failure to prevent a 25-yard touchdown run by WSU QB John Mateer on a third-and-20 situation just before halftime, provoked the loss. Most grievous of all was the final offensive play called by coach Jedd Fisch, who dialed up an option pitch started by QB Will Rogers from the two-yard line to the field’s short side. The Cougars were all over it. The purples in the crowd of close to 50,000 at the neutral site groaned, and a robust minority of the crimson-clad erupted.

“That’s on me,” Fisch said. “I made a bad call. We didn’t execute the call. We lost the game. I take that. I’m the play caller. I’m responsible and we didn’t get it done.”

Falling upon the sword was the minimum Fisch could do. The Huskies were favored by five points, out-gained WSU 452 yards to 381 and had the game’s only turnover, a late-game interception. But the offense of Fisch, in his first year at a place that had seen 22 wins in UW’s past 25 games, produced a single touchdown, along with four field goals.

“That’s not who we are,” Fisch said. “That’s not how we play.”

After Saturday, more proof is required. An elaboration might have been worthwhile from Fisch’s boss, Pat Chun, Washington’s third athletics director in the past year. But he made no appearance in the press box Saturday, although we may not have recognized him in his haz-mat suit. In one of the most notorious stunts in the annals between the schools, Chun left his job in Pullman in March to take up in Montlake, spurning the Cougars in mid-tumult following the Pac-12 collapse.

It was Chun who promoted Dickert from interim to head coach in 2021, the day after WSU beat the Huskies in the Apple Cup. The choice likely meant that Dickert bore no animus toward Chun’s decision to leave. But that doesn’t mean that revenge was not served cold in crimson-draped bars around Pioneer Square Saturday evening.