As Washington State Coach Jake Dickert put it to reporters in Seattle late Saturday, “I just think we’re at such a critical time for Washington State football,” with the future murky and the Apple Cup bizarrely nonconference.
Washington’s Jonah Coleman ran right for a loss of one, corralled by a native of the state, edge rusher Andrew Edson, bringing second and goal.
“Growing up, to be honest,” Edson would tell reporters, “I’m playing this game.”
Washington quarterback Will Rogers threw incomplete down the middle, bringing third and goal.
“We talked about it being a week’s worth of work,” Dickert would tell reporters. “It wasn’t a week’s worth of work. It was 9½ months. Grinding, staying together, working. Our captain, Nusi Malani, in the players’ meeting, he said, ‘We’re not going to beat this team because we hate these guys; we’re going to beat this team because we love each other.’”
Washington State Coach Jake Dickert receives the Apple Cup trophy from Gov. Jay Inslee after beating Washington on Saturday. (Lindsey Wasson/AP)
And while that reiterated the idea of the value of listening to an edge rusher, Washington operated from the 10-yard line, and Rogers hit Denzel Boston to the right, and the play gained … nine yards. Stephen Hall, for two seasons a Cougar, managed to get Boston out of bounds with 72 seconds left, meaning a defensive back from Memphis who had played at Northwest Mississippi Community College ought to get a place in the lore in the Pacific Northwest. Here came fourth and goal.
“I remember I put my helmet down,” said wide receiver Josh Meredith from San Diego, who starred with seven receptions for 111 yards and a touchdown. “I walked over. I was behind the crowd; I was just holding my stuff like this” — hands to chest — “like: ‘Get the stop. Get the stop. Get the stop.’”
In the simultaneous thrill and cruelty of sports, the hopes of the abandoned hinged on one play, and eventually that play did snap. Rogers began heading right with a back outside him in what resembled an option play. And while a defense was about to win the eternal love of those steadfast, mistreated Washington State fans, two guys in particular barged into the future storybooks.
One, Edson, a four-season Cougar from Snoqualmie, population 13,000-ish, 28 miles east of Seattle, began dealing with a block and maybe even a hold, but in the mass of flesh you could see his large left arm begin to fight its way out in a lunge.
He would grab Rogers as the quarterback traveled along the line, and it would send Rogers into a predicament.
“I hit him,” Edson said.
As Rogers’s option options dwindled …
“He pitched it,” Edson said.
… the ball went to Coleman near the right sideline, where a six-season Cougar turned up and so turned up forever in the fans’ warm memories. He’s Kyle Thornton, a linebacker from Upland in California’s Inland Empire, and when he corralled Coleman near the sideline for a two-yard loss, there began a feeling that might as well last the rest of the century and maybe even beyond.
“Game over,” Edson said.
Dickert looked around through his joy and saw that greatest thing about sports: the relationships. “Just to see these guys, and the
celebrations, and the relationships that have been built,” he told reporters.
He summarized: “And if you can’t get behind this team, in this moment, at this time, I just don’t know what else more we can do. Right? Because these guys stayed here for this. For this moment. Right? To bring this trophy back to Pullman [250 miles east-southeast of Seattle], it’s going to be in the third floor of the [football building] if anybody wants to come out and see it. I think we might retire this trophy. I think it’s the Pac-12 trophy. I think that might stay in our place for a long time, and we’ll bring a new one next year, a little Big Ten/Pac-12, we’ll put the new score on it. So we might retire this one as the Pac-12 trophy and stay in Pullman.”
“Being from Washington, I can’t tell you how much this win means to me,” Edson said, and it had lived in the dreams of a kid who became 6-foot-3 and 253 pounds. And that’s when he said the part about growing up and “playing” the Apple Cup, and then he told reporters: “And you’re always thinking it might be your time. And the play came to me, and it was amazing.”
It was amazing, all right. It had bucked the fresh hierarchy, the old snobbery and the dreary TV-money tyranny.
