100th Apple Cup: Something to prove

At a rally Friday to celebrate that today is the 100th football meeting between Washington and Washington State, WSU President Elson Floyd said he was anticipating "an absolutely remarkable game."

Washington running back Louis Rankin said, "This is like the Super Bowl to us."

Not that anything two 4-7 teams do figures to go down as "absolutely remarkable," nevermind Super Bowl-esque.

But, hey, this is the one game where such hyperbole is excused, maybe even encouraged.

As WSU linebacker Cory Evans said, remembering last year's 35-32 loss to UW, losing to the Huskies "gets in your head and sits there for a while. It's been sitting a long time."

It'll sit even longer for the loser this year. The loser today will finish last (or tied for last) in the Pac-10 — UW, WSU and Stanford are each 2-6 in Pac-10 games.

If the Cougars win, they will have a nice, happy memory to take into the offseason, possibly also taking away some of the intrigue about the future of coach Bill Doba. Rumors have swirled all week about the fate of the fifth-year coach, who is 29-29 entering today's game. What happens today figures to go a long way toward determining what happens next.

For only the second time since 1948, the Huskies won't end the season with the Apple Cup (2001 was the other, when a game against Miami was postponed because of the Sept. 11 attacks), with UW heading to a game at Hawaii next week.

But a win today would give the Huskies victories in three of four games heading to the islands, and give more evidence that the rebuilding project of coach Tyrone Willingham is beginning to make some headway.

The Huskies beat California last week, 37-23, behind a dominating running game, and Willingham said that a win today would show that "now you are taking the right steps."

The Cougars, meanwhile, lost at home a week ago to Oregon State, 52-17. Those twin results lead some to conclude that the Huskies could run away with this one. Some of the Huskies weren't shy in voicing confidence this week, notably senior defensive tackle Jordan Reffett, who noted he had bragging rights back home in Moses Lake last year and intends to have them again.

"That's what I'm planning to do this year — be able to go back home and do whatever I want, talk whatever I want," he said.

But Washington's past two wins in the series show the fallacy of paying much attention to what has happened the previous week. In 2003, UW lost at Cal 54-7 before coming home to beat a Holiday Bowl-bound WSU team. Last year, UW lost at home to previously winless Stanford 20-3 before heading to Pullman and beating a Cougars team that needed a win to clinch a bowl bid.

"I don't think anybody thought we could get up off the carpet, but we did and played a good football game and we won," Willingham said. "So that's why the records don't mean anything."

The Huskies will again have Jake Locker at quarterback after he sat out last week with a strained neck. Without Locker, UW ran a pretty simple straight-ahead running attack to bludgeon Cal behind 224 yards from Louis Rankin. With Locker back, Washington's offense figures to be more diverse, again employing elements of the spread option.

"He's a different animal — he's a running back," Doba said.

The Huskies expect the Cougars to bring a lot of pressure — UW coaches said WSU has blitzed about 52 percent of the time this season — which can open the door for big plays if UW reads the blitzes correctly.

The Cougars figure to test UW's secondary, which gave up a school-record 510 passing yards to Arizona four weeks ago. The Cougars lead the Pac-10 in passing yards per game behind senior quarterback Alex Brink, who will be playing his final college game.

Brink will look for some redemption after throwing a career-high six interceptions in the rain in Pullman last week. Noting the conditions last week, UW defensive coordinator Kent Baer said "it's hard to assess that."

Easier to judge is that the game figures to be intense, with coaches saying the team that can best channel its emotions might have the best chance of winning.

"You expect it to be emotional, physical, to get after each other," Willingham said. "It can be a fight, you just don't cross the line."

Bob Condotta: 206-515-5699 or bcondotta@seattletimes.com