Jedd Fisch, Huskies should hope coach's first Apple Cup was his worst
'That's on me. I made a bad call. We didn't execute the call. We lost the game.'
SEATTLE — Fourth-and-one. It works or it doesn’t. You’re a genius or a goat, and not the all-caps kind. Run or pass? And if you run, with whom? And if you pass, to whom? And if it’s the Apple Cup, and Washington State has you on the ropes, and failure on this play essentially clinches it for the Cougars?
Where’s Rome Odunze?
Nearly as soon as he sat for his first postgame press conference as a losing coach at Washington, Jedd Fisch copped to what you were probably already thinking.
“That’s on me,” he said. “I made a bad call. We didn’t execute the call. We lost the game.”
The Washington Huskies lost the Apple Cup, to be precise, and though it was played at Lumen Field, and in September, and with these programs part of different conferences, try telling the kids dressed in crimson, sprinting across NFL turf to go party with their trophy, that this rivalry just isn’t the same anymore.
It was Washington State 24, Washington 19, and a big, fat zero for the speed option to the boundary. Actually, the play lost two yards, Will Rogers pitching desperately to Jonah Coleman with no room to run, WSU’s defensive front blowing the play up, Kyle Thornton ushering Coleman to the sideline to turn possession over to the Cougars.
Three snaps and three UW penalties later, John Mateer stuck his knee in the ground, and the better-coached team celebrated a most satisfying Apple Cup victory against the program that thought it belonged in a better league.
“It’s a really sad locker room right now,” Fisch said.