‘They pitch it and game over’: Washington State, Washington offer perspective on decisive play at 116th Apple Cup

SEATTLE – For anyone who happened to miss the final dramatic moments of Saturday’s Apple Cup, Washington State edge rusher Andrew Edson offered a short, chronological summary of the play that left Cougars fans thrilled and Huskies fans stunned underneath a wet sky at Lumen Field.

“It was a great call by our (defensive coordinator),” Edson said. “Did my job, everybody did their job. I see (Will) Rogers, I hit him, they pitch it and game over.”

Washington State players and coaches were more than happy to relive the late defensive stand that allowed the Cougars to seal a 24-19 victory in the 116th Apple Cup, giving them their first win in the rivalry game since 2021 and second since 2012.

After a 45-yard hookup between Rogers, UW’s fifth-year senior quarterback, and Giles Jackson, a speedy wideout in his sixth college season, a pair of run plays set the Huskies up in the red zone. An ensuing 9-yard pass placed them 1 yard shy of the end zone, facing fourth down with 72 seconds remaining on the official game clock.

Huskies coach Jedd Fisch put in a play call, but used the team’s first timeout to deliberate further. Fisch, who chose not to reveal the initial play UW would’ve used, switched to a speed option scheme that would allow Rogers to keep the ball or pitch off to running back Jonah Coleman if the Cougars managed to snuff out the first read.

Edson powered through one blocker to reach the quarterback, forcing Rogers to move on to his second read. A last-ditch toss to Coleman safely found its way into the tailback’s hands, but another WSU defender – linebacker Kyle Thornton – met the UW player moments later, burying him into the turf for a 2-yard loss.

“We showed them a look that we’d done before, but we had a little bit of a change-up to it,” WSU coach Jake Dickert said. “I’m not going to go kind of deep into it, so they thought they could get the speed option out the back door. We didn’t give them the blitz look of what it looked to be. So I thought they made it the right call with what we showed them, but credit to our defensive staff.”

Much more reluctantly, Fisch divulged what he saw from WSU’s defense, forcing him to switch plays during the timeout.

“We had it all week long, we felt that was going to be our got-to-have-it call if we ever needed one for a yard,” UW’s coach said. “Looks like on tape or from the quick screen I saw we didn’t block it properly. We had a different call on. We called a timeout. I didn’t like the look we had, so I changed the call into that one. Probably should’ve just let it ride the first time through and see what it would’ve looked like.

“I guess if you throw it incomplete then you should’ve run it. If you run it and you don’t get it, then you should’ve thrown it. That was the call we had against that front, and we’ve got to do a better job blocking it and executing. But clearly it didn’t work.”

With just more than a minute to play and the ball on their 3-yard line, the Cougars ran two short plays that resulted in QB John Mateer diving forward to avoid a safety. The Huskies used their final two timeouts and subsequently committed consecutive penalties that allowed the Cougars to run the clock out.

“I believe in our defense, right? I don’t want to say I was surprised, but they had opportunities and I gave them some of those opportunities,” Mateer said. “So I’m like, ‘OK, if they do score and they do this, we’ve got to go.’ But this is what makes good quarterbacks, right? Making it happen right after something bad happens. I was ready for the opportunity and I just kept myself going, kept myself alert and they did it and the defense stopped it.”

Fisch, who absorbed his first loss as UW’s coach after comfortable wins over Weber State and Eastern Michigan, assumed responsibility for the fourth-and-1 call that could have led to the go-ahead touchdown with approximately 1 minute left.

“I guess anything you could ever ask for,” he said. “Fourth-and-1 with 1:12 left to win the game. That’s on me. 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.”