In this season's Apple Cup, it's a battle of the bads

PULLMAN — The Apple Cup has often confounded.

Last year, a Washington State team that had lost at home to Oregon State 52-17 the week before came to Seattle and beat a Washington squad that had just blown out California.

In 2006, a Huskies team coming off one of the worst losses in its history — a 20-3 defeat to previously winless Stanford at home that extinguished its postseason hopes — traveled to Pullman and knocked off a Cougars team that needed a win to get a bowl game.

In fact, the favorite has failed to cover the point spread six of the past seven years, and failed to win five of those games.

"It really doesn't matter [what has come before]," said UW offensive coordinator Tim Lappano, who will coach in his fourth Apple Cup for the Huskies this year. He had previously coached in five with the Cougars.

But never may the run-up to the Apple Cup be more confounding than this year, a game that kicks off at noon today at Martin Stadium.

The 101st edition not only matches two of the most disappointing teams in each school's history, but also raises a number of hard-to-figure questions.

Namely, what happens when teams with offenses each ranked among the bottom three in the nation each face defenses ranked among the bottom four in the nation?

Does the movable object prevail? Or the resistible force?

Not that players and coaches on either side — weary of queries about their own historical ineptness — really care about any of the side issues.

"We just want to get a win to feel good again," said Huskies fullback Paul Homer, a sentiment his Cougars rivals surely share.

And that's the only guarantee about this day — thanks to a 1996 rule instituting overtime — that one team finally will have something to celebrate.

The Huskies haven't won a game since last Nov. 17, the victory over Cal. WSU hasn't beaten a Football Bowl Subdivision foe since last year's Apple Cup, its only win this year coming against Portland State.

"I don't think it's ever really been much about the records, and I don't know that it ever will be," said WSU coach Paul Wulff, who played in a few Apple Cups while an offensive lineman at WSU from 1986 to 1989. "It's just a rivalry game that's fun to be part of."

And the winning team will be able to say that in a year when it was historically bad, it was at least better than the cross-state rival.

"We are in desperate need for a win and we have a chance to get it this weekend, to get a win against the Cougars," said UW safety Tripper Johnson.

Indeed, the biggest advantage each team might carry into the game is hope.

The Cougars have been outscored by 25 or more in each of their previous eight Pac-10 games. But the line on today's game is just seven points, down from an opening of as high as 9 ½ points. That means that at least gamblers think the Cougars have a better shot than the oddsmakers initially did.

Wulff said his players — who have been shut out in three of their past four games — feel similarly.

"I think that the kids definitely feel they have a chance to win this ballgame," he said. "I'm sure they [the Huskies] do, too. I think these are two teams that probably match up a lot closer than anybody else we have played."

Indeed, some of the similarities in the numbers are mind-boggling.

Washington is 117th nationally in total offense, out of 119 teams, at 263.5 yards per game; WSU is 118th at 236.36.

Washington is 110th in total defense (453.5) and 116th in scoring defense (39.9); WSU is 112th in total defense (460.27) and 118th in scoring defense (48.45).

Washington ranks 106th or lower in 15 of the 17 team stats kept by the NCAA; WSU is 104th or lower in 14.

Each team's best number is pass defense (WSU is 46th in the nation, UW 83rd) though largely because each is so easily run on, and so often so far behind, that opponents haven't needed to pass much.

Lappano thought about the numbers, and the national perspective on the game, and said, "We're the punch line. That's why we're the punch line. That's what it is right now."

Today, however, the victor gets to punch back, no matter how softly.

"We didn't expect things to go like this this year," UW safety Nate Williams said. "So winning the Apple Cup would be something we could hold our heads high about."

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