Ryan Harrington will get one more Apple Cup from the stands before he ever takes a snap in it, but the future Washington State quarterback already knows his perspective is about to change.
The Anacortes High School star said he’ll be picturing himself out on the field Sunday afternoon when the Cougars visit Husky Stadium to face Washington in the annual rivalry game.
"I am going to be imagining myself on the field playing in that game," Harrington said. "I will definitely be looking at it differently."
Harrington, who is coming off his high school season opener Friday night, helped Anacortes roll to a 38-14 win at Burlington-Edison. In his 2026 debut, he went 21 of 35 for 362 yards with a touchdown and an interception, then added 101 rushing yards and two touchdowns on 14 carries.
He and his family are making the trip down from Skagit County for the game, and he’ll be taking in his third Apple Cup in person. Harrington said one of those trips came last year, when Washington beat WSU 59-24, and another came in 2021, when the Cougars beat the Huskies at UW with Jayden de Laura at quarterback.
"I went to the one last year (a 59-24 UW win)," Harrington said, "and I also went to the one a couple years ago (in 2021) with Jayden de Laura when they beat (the Huskies) at UW."
The 6-foot-1, 200-pound Harrington, a three-star recruit according to both 247Sports.com and on3.com, has already built a big-time résumé at Anacortes. He gave the Cougars an oral commitment last April and has been a record-setting force for the program.
As a junior, the two-time WIAA Class 2A champion finished No. 2 in Washington high school football with 3,893 yards of total offense and 34 touchdowns, trailing only Moses Lake’s Brady Jay, who is now at the University of Montana.
“Ryan does it all,” Anacortes coach Justin Portz said, “at an elite level.”
Harrington’s rise has included a season disrupted by injury, too. As a sophomore, he missed the rest of the regular season after a midseason injury but came back to help Anacortes during the Class 2A playoffs as the Seahawks captured back-to-back state championships.
Before that, he was the backup quarterback as a ninth grader in 2023 to Rex Larson, when Anacortes won the first state title in school history.
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Washington has said the change ties to Big Ten conference rules and cost considerations, and both schools have acknowledged that financial and operational issues are becoming harder to ignore around band travel and placement. For a rivalry built as much on atmosphere as on the scoreboard, the absence stood out immediately, and it adds another wrinkle to how the Apple Cup is being staged going forward. [Read more 🡒]
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The bigger test, though, is whether all of that reshuffling can translate into something the program has not done since 2022: win a road game against a ranked opponent. Washington State also enters the season with several coaching and player connections to Washington, which only adds another layer to a rivalry backdrop that already tends to sharpen every detail. For a roster built as much through the portal as through patience, the next step is less about how new it looks and more about whether it can handle a pressure point that has lingered for years. [Read more 🡒]