SEATTLE - Sunday’s Washington State-Washington matchup at Husky Stadium has drawn plenty of eye-rolling, but dismissing it as meaningless misses the point.
Yes, this is a pre-Labor Day, nonconference game in a college sports world that has been bent out of shape by money, shifting affiliations and rosters full of short-timers. Yes, the old blood-and-bones feel of rivalry football is harder to find when so many players are effectively passing through. And yes, the current contract only guarantees two more meetings after this one, which only adds to the sense that time is running short.
Still, the Apple Cup matters.
It matters because it is one of the few surviving pieces of college football that still carries meaning beyond the dollars attached to it. It matters because, for both schools, the game still says something. And it matters because for Washington State especially, this is a chance to make an early statement in a new chapter.
For the Cougars, this is the first look at a new staff and an opening step into a reshaped conference. Their schedule does not include another opponent currently ranked in the Top 25, which gives this game outsized importance as a possible launch point for WSU’s first fall in the new Pac-12.
For Washington, the stakes are different but no less real. The No.
17 Huskies cannot afford a home loss to a non-Power Conference opponent in the opener without paying a steep price in the polls. A defeat would knock them out entirely and leave them trailing at least three Big 10 teams that entered the preseason ranked in the top 10.
There’s also the strange modern twist that hangs over all of this: Washington quarterback Demond Williams is on a $4 million NIL deal, which is twice the salary of WSU head coach Kirby Moore, listed at $2 million. That kind of mismatch only reinforces how warped the business side of the sport has become.
Moore, though, is not walking into this blind. The Prosser native grew up with the Apple Cup as part of the landscape, and he spent 2015-16 as a graduate assistant under Chris Petersen at Washington, with the Huskies winning both of those games.
He also came to Pullman after serving as offensive coordinator at Missouri, taking over a job that had been briefly held by Jimmy Rogers. Rogers’ only Cougar team lost 59-24 at home before he left for Iowa State.
The recent history of the rivalry tells its own story. During the Mike Leach years, Washington State managed just one win in eight Apple Cups.
Mike Price won three of 14. But the game still has a way of delivering the kind of moment that sticks.
That was clear in the first of the nonconference Apple Cups, when WSU beat UW 24-19 at Lumen Field. The Cougars sealed it with a goal-line stand, and on the decisive snap the defense strung out an option run before linebacker Kyle Thornton shot through for a tackle for a loss.
Thornton was the kind of player this era rarely seems to produce: a sixth-year veteran, a walk-on turned captain, the opposite of a transient mercenary.
That finish had drama, significance, heroism and timing. In other words, it had everything.
In Other News...
Apple Cup Tradition Just Took A Hit WSU Fans Will Notice
The Apple Cup lost a familiar piece of its pageantry when the Washington State band did not take the field for the halftime show, ending a long-running tradition that had helped give the rivalry its own distinct sound and feel. Washington State officials pointed to logistical and experiential concerns in deciding not to send the band, while the Cougars and Huskies both have had to navigate the practical headaches that come with moving a full band to a road game.
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 🡒]
Future WSU Quarterback Is Already Embracing The Apple Cup Rivalry
Ryan Harrington is already leaning into the kind of game Washington State fans circle on the calendar. The Anacortes High School quarterback, who has committed to the Cougars, is coming off a strong season opener and will be in the stands for the upcoming Apple Cup as a fan, taking in the rivalry he hopes to be part of down the road. For a player with a record-breaking high school career and two state championships already on his resume, the trip is as much about observing the atmosphere as it is about watching the matchup.
Harrington has made plenty of noise on the prep level, but his connection to this rivalry gives his commitment a little extra edge. He has already imagined himself in the game someday, which is exactly the sort of mindset Washington State will want as it keeps building toward future Apple Cups. For now, he gets to watch, learn and picture where he fits when the series comes around again with him on the field instead of in the stands. [Read more 🡒]
Washington State Carries Extra Emotion Into This Apple Cup
Washington State will bring a little extra weight onto the field for the 118th Apple Cup, with helmet decals honoring former coaches Jim Walden and Bill Doba. Both men died recently, and the Cougars are using one of the rivalrys biggest stages to recognize two coaches whose time in Pullman left a lasting imprint on the program.
Walden guided Washington State from 1978 to 1986, while Doba led the Cougars from 2003 to 2007, and each had his own place in the schools football history. In a matchup already loaded with annual emotion and memory, the tribute adds another layer for a program that has long measured itself against Washington not just by wins and losses, but by the people who helped shape what Cougar football became. [Read more 🡒]