On Saturday, the Washington Huskies and the Washington State Cougars will play the 117th Apple Cup football game on Gesa Field in Pullman.
It’s a series that goes back to 1900. It was always the last regular season game for the two teams. That all changed when Washington bolted the Pac-12 Conference for the Big Ten Conference. Nine other Pac-12 members also changed their league affiliations, leaving Washington State and Oregon State to save what was left of the Pac-12.
Oregon State and Oregon have extended their Civil War rivalry game and WSU and Washington signed a five-year agreement to keep the Apple Cup going, for now. This year it's the fourth game for the Cougars, third for the Huskies.
What happens after the five-year run ends? Seattle sportswriter Bud Withers has an opinion. He has just released a book about the Apple Cup called “Too Good to Be Through.” I asked if the title is an editorial comment about what he thinks about the future of the series and he said yes.
This interview is lightly edited for brevity and clarity.
Bud Withers: It's just such a part of the way of sporting life in the state. And I just think it makes too much sense for the thing not to continue.
I mean, for WSU, economically, not only at the school, but in the region over there, they need a big game. They need the hotels filled and the restaurants, you know, reservation list filled up. And for Washington, it's at a time when a lot of their trips are 2,000 miles to 2,500 miles. This is a 40-minute plane ride against an opponent that at least most years will be mid-level or better. So I just think it would be a shame if it does somehow end.
DN: It’s a series that has been dominated by Washington and it has featured a lot of bad games. But there have been exciting contests with a lot on the line for one or both teams. Withers points to a five-year period in the early 1980s as an example.
BW: It was phenomenal. 1981 was the year they met over here, basically, to decide who goes to the Rose Bowl. The Huskies ended up winning and actually needed help, I believe it was from USC against UCLA to get there. The next two years, the Cougars, as people well remember, as double-digit underdogs, both years in ’82 and ’83, kept the Huskies out of the Rose Bowl with victories.
DN: The year that (Husky kicker) Chuck Nelson missed his (only) field goal. He hadn't missed all year.
BW: Exactly, still holds the NCAA record for consecutive field goals with 30. In ’84, the Huskies were bound to a New Year's Day bowl game, which turned out to be the Orange Bowl, and the Cougars had a 10-point lead on them in Pullman late in the third quarter. The Huskies put a pretty good rush on at the end and beat them, so that was a big-time game.
And then, to complete that five-year stretch at Husky Stadium in really frigid conditions, in ’85, the Cougars won 21-20 when they denied the Huskies a two-point conversion in the last—I can't remember, but it was very late in the game. It was inside the last two minutes, I think. So, you'd be hard-pressed to find any rivalry in the country in that five-year period that was as sizzling as the Apple Cup was.
DN: So, how would you characterize it now that Washington has moved on to the Big Ten and the Cougars are still where the Cougars are? How would you characterize the direction that the series is going?
BW: Well, I think you would characterize it by saying it's clear as mud at this point. I mean, they're in the second year of a five-year contract, which runs through 2028, but it is in doubt after that. And my overall sense is so many things need to shake out.
It's been such a convulsive time in college athletics that our heads are still spinning, I think, and certainly they're still spinning in both athletic departments with all the NIL stuff and all the House settlement stuff and its implications for revenue sharing with athletes within the athletic departments.
And to put a finer point on it, we don't really know if the Huskies are going to be like a perennial contender for a playoff spot as a result of being in the Big Ten or are they going to be, like, typically a sixth or seventh place team in the Big Ten. We don't know if the Cougars are going to be, you know, a frequent kingpin in the rejiggered Pac-12 or are they going to fall back to the middle of the pack and Boise State's going to dominate this league. There's just so many things we don't know, and I think the relative competitiveness of the two will have something to say about it.
My take in the book was I really want to see the rivalry continue, and I think there's a lot of sentiment to make that happen, but, you know, if it got to a point where for an extended period of time Washington was winning by six touchdowns, then maybe they'd have to revisit the whole thing. But I just think the thing is so ingrained in the state and so much a part of the state's history and something that brings East and West together, and it just makes too much sense for these two schools not to play each other.
DN: In your research, we were talking about the games in the early 80s when both teams were really good. Are there kind of hidden Apple Cups that you found really interesting that you didn't know much about that really intrigued you?
BW: I knew at least vaguely some of the earlier ones that were prominent in their day. There were ones, going way, way back, I think it was in 1936, the Cougars and the Huskies were fighting, I believe, for the Pacific Coast Conference title at that time. I think that was the first year they met with a conference title on the line and the Rose Bowl. And the Huskies just stomped the Cougars. I think it was 40 to nothing.
It's intriguing to wonder how in the world that could have happened. The only thing I remember is that one of the players was quoted in Dick Fry's book, the great WSU historian who wrote a book on WSU athletics. One of the players was quoted as saying that they had gotten really beat up in the previous game against, I believe it was UCLA, and they had lost a couple of really key players. And I think he also said Babe Hollingbery, who was, of course, the most decorated WSU coach of all time, this player said that Babe wanted that game so badly that he kind of overworked them in preparation for it. But talk about a non sequitur, you know, you're playing for conference honors and you get beat 40 to nothing.
DN: Longtime Cougar fans remember the heartbreak of the 1975 Apple Cup at Husky Stadium, when the Cougars had a 27-14 lead and were driving deep in Husky territory in the last two minutes when Washington defensive back Al Burleson intercepted a pass and returned it the length of the field for a touchdown. Soon after, Washington got the ball and quarterback Warren Moon heaved a Hail Mary pass that was tipped by Cougar defenders into the hands of Husky receiver Spider Gaines, who ran it in for the game-winning touchdown.
BW: It occurred to me the other day, this is the 50th anniversary of that crazy play. So, you know, these things are never too far from the surface.
DN: So I'm drawn by the fact that usually the game is the Saturday after or the Saturday before Thanksgiving. And we've seen the pictures of snow flying and Drew Bledsoe throwing a touchdown pass to Phillip Bobo. But this Saturday's game is going to be at 85 degrees. What do you expect?
BW: Well, selfishly, I'd just like to see a good game. You'd like to see a competitive game, much like we had a year ago over here in Seattle, Lumen Field.
You know, I would fear that there has been such a gap created over a year's time by the NIL forces and what not that Washington is about to really put it to WSU. Husky fans would disagree with me at the drop of a hat, but I just don't think that's going to be real good for the rivalry. But it's remarkable how much things have pulled in opposite directions.
