Huskies Win Apple Cup

Last night the annual cross-state rivalry game between the University of Washington Huskies and the Washington State University Cougars was held at 7:30 P.M. in a very cold Pullman, Washington. Where I lived, wind chills were in the single digits last night and it was probably the same on the field at Martin Stadium on the WSU campus. But the cold didn't dampen the enthusiasm and rivalry both teams exhibited. The cold, however, did affect play, as dropped balls plagued both teams, but mostly the Cougars.

The Huskies got off to an early lead on their second play from scrimmage with a long run touchdown in the first quarter. Then for a while it looked as if it was going to be a defensive game. The Cougars multiple times tried to convert 4th downs only to give up the ball to the Huskies. But the Huskies couldn't reach the end zone easily either, They did managed a TD pass making the score at halftime  14-0.

Again, on their second play from scrimmage of the second quarter, the Huskies made a touchdown. Later they added a field goal making score 24-0 at the end of the third quarter and it was starting to look as if the Cougs would be shut out in front of their own crowd.

But the Cougars managed to make two touchdowns. On the second one, with not much time left in the game, they went for the 2-point conversion and missed it. The final score was 31-13. By then most of the crowd had left.

This gives the Huskies a 8-5 record on the season and Coach Chris Petersen the first 8-win season for a first-year coach in Husky history (although, he had 13 games to do it in). The Huskies will be going to a bowl and speculation is either the Cactus Bowl or the Armed Forces Bowl (both on January 2nd).

The bad news is, the Huskies were only 4-5 in conference. Admittedly, the Pac-12 is a tough conference with many teams ranked or formerly ranked.

I'm hoping next year Petersen will have made his imprint on the team and it will be a more cohesive and unified group. It'll be tough to compete in the Pac-12 (with Oregon consistently being a top-ranked team) but if anyone can do it, I think it is Petersen.