How WSU coach Jake Dickert and players came to understand the importance of the Apple Cup

PULLMAN – Shortly after Jake Dickert arrived on Washington State’s campus in early 2020 as the Cougars’ defensive coordinator, he began to understand the importance of the program’s biggest rivalry.

That was called the Apple Cup, he learned, the annual clash of WSU and Washington. The Cougars’ head coach at the time, Nick Rolovich, helped teach Dickert a little about it. Dickert read up on it on his own, too. What stuck with him most: Months prior, the teams had played the 112th installment of the game, signaling how far back this series went.

This thing didn’t just get started, he thought.

Nearly five years later, Dickert has learned tons more about the rivalry, which will be renewed Saturday in Seattle, the site of Apple Cup No. 116.

“You can read about history all you want,” Dickert said, “but until you’re in there, you’re in that arena, you feel the vibes, you understand what it means to win and lose, the highs and lows that comes from that, that’s when you learn about what this thing is.”

Dickert became the Cougars’ head coach a day after winning the 2021 installment, a 40-13 WSU blowout, the team’s first win over UW since 2012. That’s when WSU brass elevated him from interim to full-time head coach, replacing Rolovich, who had been fired earlier in the season for not complying with the state COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

It was Dickert’s first head coaching job.

“Just the pride that I have in that memory of that football game, I don’t think it’ll ever be topped in my football coaching career, what that meant in that time,” Dickert said. “Obviously, getting the trophy was part of that.

“But the joy was seeing those guys put in all that work in that moment, and go in there in a tough environment and do what we intended to do.”

Since then, Dickert has experienced a few lows, too. WSU dropped the 2022 Apple Cup 51-33, and the Cougars fell on a last-second field goal in last year’s loss at Husky Stadium.

That, it became clear last August, would be the final clash between WSU and UW as conference foes. Washington was one of 10 schools that announced plans to depart the Pac-12 last summer, and at that point, the future of the Apple Cup was hazy. Would it continue at all – and if so, in what capacity?

The next version is here, set for 12:30 p.m. Saturday at the Seattle Seahawks’ Lumen Field, officially a neutral-site game between the Cougars and Huskies. Streamed on Peacock, the meeting will be the first nonconference clash of these clubs since 1961.

To these Cougs, off to a 2-0 start to the season, the importance of the game lives throughout the halls of the program. The narrative of the game might be different – it’s no longer a conference game, and this year, not even at either of the teams’ home stadiums – but to the coaches and players, the significance hasn’t changed a bit.

“We’re beyond past that,” Dickert said of UW’s departure for the Big Ten. “This is the Apple Cup. I’m really glad that we have continued this tradition. I know it’s obviously gonna be on a new date. Iowa and Iowa State have always played in the first three weeks, so that’ll be part of the new tradition of this Apple Cup.”

“It’s so important,” said WSU safety Tyson Durant, a transfer from Akron. “All the guys have been talking about it since I even got here – like the day of. They’ve been talking – ‘we gotta win this game.’ ”

To Cougars who grew up in the state, it’s a little more familiar. Sophomore running back Djouvensky Schlenbaker, a native of Bellingham, remembers watching the game as a first-grader. He wouldn’t say who he was rooting for back then – his smile may have given that much away – but because he’s grown up watching it, he’s internalized what it means to each school, to their fan bases, their alumni.

“I wouldn’t say like the hatred of each other,” Schlenbaker said, referencing what makes this rivalry special, “but like, the passion behind the game, for the fans and everyone. They don’t like each other. Nobody likes each other from both sides, and that’s just the way it is.”

“We don’t like that school on the West Side,” WSU edge Nusi Malani, a California native, added. “It’s not coming from a place of hate. It’s just the love that we have here, in Pullman, Washington. We’re not coming in wanting to hate them on the West Side. We just love where we are and what we do here.”

The Cougs walk a fine line: They understand what the game means to them and everyone around them, but they don’t take the field with hate in their hearts.

That, Dickert mentioned, would be important. His players can’t let emotion override the practice they’ve put in for this game.

But WSU players aren’t professing how much they like UW players, either. In some cases, it’s quite the opposite.

“The vibe that I’m getting from them is they don’t respect us,” WSU freshman running back Wayshawn Parker said.

“So if I come here and somebody don’t respect me, I’m not gonna respect them.”