Apple victory still tastes sweet to hopeful Cougars

PULLMAN — How important was this to the Cougars? Well, it was a two-president game, as the current head man, Elson Floyd, patrolled the press box and his predecessor, Lane Rawlins, also dropped by.

No matter if it matched two teams whose composite body of work had yielded one more victory than Bear Bryant has this year. Friday night, Washington State turned to the godfather of its renascent basketball program, Dick Bennett, to deliver a few words of encouragement.

"He basically told us there are some non-negotiables," said running back Logwone Mitz in the goofy delirium here after WSU had dispatched Washington, 16-13 in overtime.

"You have to have non-negotiables, as far as what's not going to happen, or what you're not going to do, as far as penalties, or missing a block."

In other words, the retired secretary of roundball defense told them you don't beat somebody else until you don't beat yourselves.

But Paul Wulff co-opted his own corollary on the theme. The first-year WSU head coach decided it was also kosher to send a message about going out and winning this thing.

First overtime, game tied 10-10, fourth-and-a-yard-and-a-half for WSU at the Washington 4-yard line. Ninety percent of college coaches probably do the predictable, corporate thing and kick the field goal — especially when your own team is offensively challenged, so is the other team and points are precious.

Wulff, holding a pair of threes, decided to go all-in. He figured in the long run, it would be a teaching moment, if nothing else. Come up short and lose the game, and he'd fall back on the lesson for some motivation in the weight room in January and February.

"We just felt we'd get it," said Wulff. "I was going to go for the win. I'm going to be a little more in the attack mode than I'm going to be in the conservative mode.

"I just felt in that situation, we needed to do it."

Said quarterback Kevin Lopina, "It just told me the coaches have confidence in us."

Confidence? You've got confidence in a team that's been shut out three times and didn't put up a point in the first half against the nation's No. 116th-ranked scoring defense?

"You know what, that's a growing deal for this football team," Wulff said. " 'Listen, fourth and one and a half in the Apple Cup, you got it. You can get it.'

"I felt that was a little bit of a statement for our kids."

They got it, of course, although they fizzled from there on that series and ended up kicking a field goal anyway. But as Wulff said, it was a message that WSU could dictate terms. Yes, WSU, author of six games this year in which it allowed 58 or more points.

Only moments before, the Huskies had taken the safe route on their last possession of regulation. On fourth and three at the WSU 36, they punted, conceding the Cougars one last possession. If they run the ball for 3 yards, and they had already run for 224, the game's done.

The decision was certainly defensible. Also safe, prudent — and one seemingly born of playing not to lose.

Despite an 11-minute edge in time of possession, the Huskies somehow kept the Cougars around long enough until they bit them on the backside. For the second straight year, the play of the game came when a WSU receiver — Brandon Gibson in 2007, Jared Karstetter this time — got behind a Washington defensive back when you wouldn't have believed it was possible.

"Kevin [Lopina] picked up his play at the end of the game," said Wulff. "He didn't play as well as he's capable of the first three quarters."

One of the scant scraps left on the table in this strangest of Apple Cups is this: It enables the Cougars to slip into the ranks of the anonymous. With all those terrible losses of September, October, November, they had announced their candidacy for enshrinement into the Worst Teams Hall of Fame.

They've allowed a Pac-10-record number of points, but they have something a lot of their desultory predecessors didn't have: A conference win. That has to count for something.

"I avoided it," Wulff said, referring to negativism that had even gone national. "It's my job to build us back. We'll get there, it's just going to take hard work.

"Along the way, we're going to have people poking fun at us here and there. I can't control that."

Students rushed the field. Floyd, the president, joined the scrum, too. And the locker room?

"We ain't never had a locker room like that one," said running back Dwight Tardy.

In other words: To hell with teaching moments. There's no substitute for a victory in the Apple Cup. Even this Apple Cup.

Bud Withers: 206-464-8281 or bwithers@seattletimes.com