End to mini-curse finally gave Cougars chance to laugh last

PULLMAN – For a week, everyone played this one for laughs, and for a couple of quarters Saturday evening so did Washington and Washington State.

Maybe there wasn’t much choice. Everything about the 97th Apple Cup – we’ll grandfather in the 54 games before the fruit growers ponied up the trophy – imagined Clem Kadiddlehopper vs. Homer Simpson, except perhaps to the truly interested parties. And even that last attachment was a benefit-of-the-doubt allowance.

But it’s funny what people care about.

When the Cougars finally chased UW relief pitcher Isaiah Stanback harmlessly out of bounds for the last time, the clock and the Huskies spent at last, the fans came flying out of the Martin Stadium bleachers – just bodies this time, no bottles. They swallowed up not only the heroes of Wazzu’s 28-25 victory – Jerome Harrison, Jason Hill, Will Derting – but anyone attired in the proper hues.

Which is to say white, crimson, gray and relief, not necessarily in that order.

If Mkristo Bruce didn’t grasp it before, he did then.

“To have fans try and pick me up and carry me off the field,” said WSU’s sophomore defensive end, shaking his head. “To see how excited they were, to see people jump on me, guys who used to play here, fans who used to go to school here and have them come up and say, ‘We never beat the Huskies – thank you so much. Thank you, thank you.’

“It just feels so good to finally give something back.”

Who really thought it could matter even this much? Two teams so far off the football relevance radar that they may as well have been playing two-handed touch – who would have imagined the passion?

Just goes to show – there may be no motivating agent as powerful as sheer desperation.

And also, if you’re trying to end a maddening cycle of six consecutive losses to your hated rival, it’s really to your advantage to have that team start and stubbornly stick with the worst quarterback in the history of the school. This really cannot be emphasized enough.

But no asterisks on this Apple. A few flies, maybe, but no asterisks.

The tone was set with three turnovers in the game’s first 15 plays, affirmed as UW quarterback Casey Paus fumbled and misfired his team out of contention and finally re-established when Stanback was belatedly subbed in and the Cougars commenced to nearly blow a three-touchdown lead and their blessed redemption in a style all too reminiscent of Apples Ought-Two and Ought-Three, tragedies almost Grecian in their scope.

But this time, when the Cougars readied for UW’s last couple of roundhouses – with just 35 seconds to play – defensive coordinator Robb Akey gathered his men together and didn’t just reach for their hearts and minds, but also the more southerly organs.

“This is not going to happen on our field again,” he told them.

Then he took Bruce aside.

“I want you to get a sack – now,” he insisted. “If I ever needed you, this is the time.”

So Bruce sacked Stanback – an absolute crusher with the Huskies out of timeouts. Asked and answered – how could it have been more simple?

Bruce is among the more thoughtful Cougars, and he couldn’t help but liken what Wazzu has gone through these past six years to a much longer and far more notorious bit of sports misfortune.

“The Curse,” he said, betraying a smile. “How many years has it come down to the last few plays, the last 30 seconds. For some reason, the damned Huskies always try to crawl back at the end or do something crazy. I was just thinking to myself, ‘Don’t let it be the same Apple Cup.’

“Well, just like the Red Sox, we beat that curse.”

Overstated? Not so much.

The Wazzu era preceding this season of modest – but not necessarily under – achievement was, of course, the most successful run in school history. Except that the Cougars never managed to beat the outfit from over the pass, even when they had significantly superior talent.

“It’s been miserable,” admitted Akey. “You take a lot of pride in what you do as a coach, and in the way we’ve played our seasons the last few years. But there’s nothing more insulting than when you lose a game you’re supposed to win.

“I’m not trying to slam (the Huskies). But we were the team that was supposed to win this game the last couple three years, and had the opportunities to do it and didn’t. It was the thing that kept it from being three 11-win seasons, and that’s been a hard thing to deal with. And as good as things have been, that can still get thrown back in your face.”

And it was. Continually.

This would have been even more humiliating – the Huskies, of course, enduring the worst season in their history, and the Cougs not even able to console themselves with post-season neener-neeners.

But this time, the worst was averted. The Huskies’ defense couldn’t get the stop it needed to keep the clock on its side. Stanback – the quarterback coach Keith Gilbertson should have turned to in October, if for no other reason than he has a future and Paus only a past – couldn’t throw the last strike UW needed for yet another miracle.

And the Cougars were, at last, able to reflect with perspective instead of bitterness.

Senior defensive tackle Steve Cook was even able to pinpoint just how big – but no bigger – winning the Apple Cup is.

“In a perfect world, we’d be going to a bowl game,” he said. “But since we weren’t so successful earlier, I think beating them is better than going to a bowl. Well, maybe not going to the Rose Bowl, but maybe the Vegas bowl, or the Sun Bowl.”

Down the road, it will not matter that this was the god-awfulest team Washington has ever had. It won’t matter that Wazzu finished 5-6, that the bowl hopes were 90 percent bravado, that the Cougars were 10 points from a 1-10 season themselves.

What will matter is one perpetual highlight – the body slam that defensive end Adam Braidwood laid on UW punt returner Sonny Shackleford before that final series. It was punctuation before the end of the sentence.

It was the last laugh.