For all the apples, and that’s a lot
PULLMAN – Go ahead and make the jokes about this Apple Cup. It’s meaningless, after all, with the Cougars at 4-6, the Huskies at 1-9.
Just be sure of one thing – don’t try telling anyone at Washington or Washington State that there isn’t something riding on today’s season finale football game.
“If you go by the records, everybody’s going, ‘Ah, well, who cares?’ ” WSU head coach Bill Doba said. “I’ll tell you who cares. They care. And we care. That’ll make it a good dog fight, or I should say, a cat-and-dog fight.”
Still, the records don’t lie, and the story this time around is that this is the first Apple Cup since 1976 where neither team has a winning record. But both teams do have something other than pride to play for when they meet at 4 p.m. in sold-out Martin Stadium before an ABC-TV audience.
A Huskies win would prevent the school from having its worst record in more than 100 years of program history. And a Cougars win would snap a six-game Apple Cup losing streak, and make this graduating senior class of 13 the winningest in WSU history.
But with neither team playing up to snuff this season, the first minutes could make all the difference.
In the last four Cougars games, early points have translated into momentum that was enough to last the entire game.
“It’s important for either team, if they can jump off to a good start,” Doba said. “Both teams have struggled this year, and I think it’s a great compliment to the fact that a big part of this game is mental. It’s just like UCLA. We kicked off, they fumbled, we recovered it and the first play we ran for a touchdown. The enthusiasm, the confidence – everything just picked up. And then at Arizona State, our first play was an interception and four or five plays later they scored. You can just see the difference.”
Washington, on the other hand, has fallen flat in the second half of almost every game this season. The Huskies have been on thin ice almost from the start, with one significant player after another getting hurt as the season progressed.
“We’re going to have our banquet in the training room this year,” said Washington’s Keith Gilbertson, who is coaching his last game after two turmoil-filled seasons and a midseason dismissal as coach.
“This has been an abnormal, crazy year. We probably lost nine or 10 starters off a team that is pretty young and doesn’t have a great deal of depth yet, so that’s a significant blow for us and it seems that week after week we lose somebody who is real crucial to us in having success.”
Gilbertson’s dismissal is one reason, Doba said, why his team should be concerned about today’s game. While the Huskies have beaten only San Jose State this year and are 0-7 in the Pac-10, Gilbertson is a player’s coach and his team might be motivated to send him out on a high note.
Plus, with Gilbertson’s staff coaching its last game for Washington, Doba senses that just about anything could come the Cougars’ way this afternoon.
“If I was at Washington and I was the offensive coordinator, and I always wanted to try this formation, or I always wanted to try this play, I always wanted to try a double-reverse pass with a kick at the end or something, this would be the time to do it,” he said. “Because what are they going to do, fire me?”