The Win-win Apple Cup
- Thread starter Cougsocal
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I'd consider the Vegas or the Cheez It a better destination than the Sun Bowl.
That we lost the Apple Cup.
Everything about the Vegas bowl is more convenient and better for me and my family. However I want a win in this Apple Cup at all costs. Carry on !!
You and the rest of Coug nation.
Well, except Flat. He loves El Paso. To each their own.
Last year, I was gutted, the game meant so much. A chance at a championship for the first time in more than 15 years. Overcoming the Leach jinx with the Minshew magic. The story book ending was there to be written. This year, the battle is not to finish last in the North. My God we haven't beaten a good Husky team in 26 years and we won't even have that opportunity. And the winner gets to play in the Serbia of bowls. The game has lost much of its shine. Damn it, I want Husky tears, and this year won't provide any.
Yes it will. Regardless of what they may say, they can’t fathom losing to the Cougs even with their shittier teams.
I attended WSU from 1981 to 1985. Our 1981 Rose Bowl run fell short at Montlake. It was our first legitimate Rose Bowl run in more than a generation. 50 years without a Rose Bowl, and they got to go instead. That loss hurt extra deep. But Jim Walden and the Cougs exacted their revenge two fold. Knocking Don James and the Dawgs out of the Rose Bowl in 1982 and 1983. Those Husky tears weren't figurative, but literal, tears that only those who feel entitled, shed, and they were abundant. After last year, I wanted some more of that. But it isn't to be.
I think the only time I saw huskies not being entitled was after 0-12. For that brief moment Huskies far and wide smelled the stink of their own shit.
Love El Paso. Got family and friends there. Any reason to visit is fine by me.
By November 1983, WSU was the best team in the conference. The 1982 loss stung, 'cuz that Cougar team stunk.
A little revisionist history there HH, don't you think. 1983 was promised to be "pay back time" in a big way, as I recall. When it didn't happen, no statement, and the Dawgs looked so underwhelming to boot, only then did James pull the "they are the best team in the conference" comment out of his high and mighty arse. When your entire offense consisted of a Danny Greene punt return, in what was supposed to be a beat down, what else could Lord Almighty say?
My wife bought me some great waterproof shoe covers that I would have killed to have at the 2015 Sun Bowl.
.... wha...... what am I missing?
We had a full on knock down, drag out about the merits of El Paso 3 or 4 years ago, you being on the merits side. Am I completely mis-remembering?
You have to be mis-remembering. The only thing that I said was positive about El Paso was that I ran into some really cool Cougs and hung out at a crappy pool hall and shot pool with them on Christmas Night. I still keep in touch occasionally with one of them. The town is ok, but nothing I'd travel to see if not for the bowl game. The stadium is a decrepit, cold piece of junk and the weather has sucked both times that I went....although 2015 was way worse than 2001.
Punter Glenn Harper's helmet shattered Greene's nuts on that TD-saving tackle in 1983. The entire crowd gasped loud enough to be heard in Snohomish.
Go to 17:19 to watch the Harper tackle on the special teams film.
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How was 1982 a fluke? Honestly? Here are the facts as I know them. We spotted the Dawgs a 10 pt. halftime lead. Clete passed only 9 times all game. We had zero big plays outside on the rump turn option. No trick plays. Few penalties. Cold, but dry conditions. We ran the ball almost exclusively between the tackles. Williams and Harris still ran for 100+, each, and the Huskies had only 1 turnover in the first 59:04, until the the game clinching Int., which was in Husky territory. The fact Choke Nelson missed a field goal is hardly a "fluke." It was high pressure, no doubt, but kickers miss high pressure field every weekend. It was old school, hard nose football, but Dan Lynch, John Winslow the rest of the OL, just dominated the trenches the entire second half. A very unexpected loss, surprising yes, but when push came shove, the physically dominant team won, which is the norm.
That was my first Apple Cup. Only missed two until 2011, the first year I decided never to go back to fusky stadium again in my lifetime.
Its an odd irony:
Golden age of Cougar football, yet in the dark ages of the Apple Cup.
Walden era was awful and so was the 1982 team.
They ended Oregon State's two dozen game losing streak that year by having too many men on the field on a missed OSU field goal (rekick was good, a career best for OSU kicker)
Shut out in Spokane by awful Colorado team.
Paying a career assistant $30k to $50k a year to run a 1960s offense in the 1980s.
Bad staff, poor player discipline (Rypien got concussed in the spring game one year), off the field troubles that didn't even pass the standards of 1989 let alone alone 2019.
With the school calendar switch over in spring 1984 from late September to late August start for Fall semester (a change WSC/WSU should have made in the 1950s), the home games were going to move back to Pullman and away from Joe Albi anyway. Walden deserves little credit for that.
Boomer students also got free Pullman games until 1984 school year.
The 1980s were one of the best decades I’ve ever followed WSU football. You’re entitled to your opinion, but I attended most of our home games in every decade from the 80s until now.
Spoken like a man that never watched a minute of football in the era of unlimited scholarships, unlimited practices in pads, hard, hard hitting, Dianabol driven football, when OLs were small waisted athletes, running counters and pulling on virtually every play, when the object WAS to get to get to and put QB of the game, even after the whistle.
I'll still take Keith Millard and Brent White, in a cage match, against any two players you can think of in the last 25 years. Mean dudes, you didn't want to piss off. Rosie took a pain killer, went back into the game led the drive and ran for the winning score against the Huskies with a separated shoulder, because he couldn't throw. Inconceivable today. Football hasn't been the same since. Its like saying the kids today are as tough as the men who stormed the Normandy beaches. Let's not kid ourselves, the world and what is considered good hard nose football, has changed.
Yeah, but we dominated the #5, supposedly Rose Bowl bound Dawgs in the second half, by blowing them off the ball with extraordinary OL play. It called "beat down" football. Or you have yet another Husky loss by a soft playing team, and you are Vegas bound. That 1982 game is legendary, nearly 40 years later. Who won last years Vegas Bowl? Enough said!
WOW! Without looking, I'm not sure. That said, I don't have the recall of a 22 year old anymore. However, I'll go to my deathbed thinking of Tim Harris, hand raise, running though that Mack truck size hole. And they didn't call him for taunting!
1982 AC was exciting but UW poorly coached that game. Glad Lambo never got interview in 87 & 89.
Besides that who did Walden beat? He had two or three guaranteed conference wins a year when he was facing Roger Thederer, Joe Kapp, Craig Fertig, Joe Avezzano, Dave Krapthorpe at Cal and OSU not to mention the overrated Rich Brooks of 83 Toilet Bowl fame at preNike UO.
Non conference in the non body bag games was low paid coaches who ended up as car dealers or high school coaches.
Pay in the 1980s was bad in college football and so was the coaching. (3 Big Sky coaches ended up in the Big 9 and only Ed Troxel was any good.)
Rosie never should have been allowed to return to coach.
I'll give credit for Brett White for allegedly shooting at the crop duster. Spraying at 2am near town was bull***t[/QUOTE]
