Some Apple Cup Slices Leading Up to Saturday's Kickoff

The Huskies and Cougars each would prefer to be hosting this one on campus.

Jedd Fisch emerges from the Husky Stadium tunnel. / Skylar Lin Visuals

Jedd Fisch doesn't do pre-game stadium walk-throughs, home or away.

The University of Washington football coach chooses to keep things simple in the hours leading up to a game. If necessary, he might have someone move some hotel dining room chairs around and make his players double-check a formation.

Yet the Huskies won't be headed to Lumen Field, site of the 116th Apple Cup against Washington State and home for the NFL's Seattle Seahawks, anytime before arriving for Saturday afternoon's kickoff.

"This has never been part of our process," Fisch said.

For this coming game, with Lumen considered a neutral site, the UW will treat it as if it were a home outing, staying at their same Eastside hotel on Friday night, going through each of its rituals and then bussing downtown rather than to Montlake.

The Huskies will wear their home purples against the Cougars for the second consecutive year, having been given that option after hosting and beating their state rival 24-21 last November at home.

Playing this one at Lumen was a concession made by both schools to keep the rivalry intact after the Pac-12 broke up and this became a non-conference match-up at best. The UW couldn't afford to play another road game because of its Big Ten schedule and its budget needs, while WSU wasn't exactly keen on playing a second year in a row at Husky Stadium. The schools will split the game revenues down the middle.

This is the first game of a five-year contract signed in a hurry that will keep the UW and WSU playing each other and alternating sites again in 2025, when the teams meet in Pullman.

It will be interesting to see what kind of atmosphere the neutral setting creates for this college game, with reports of slow ticket sales that might bring just a 50,000-plus crowd in the 68,740-seat NFL stadium.

The Huskies and Cougars met at this site once before, when it was known as Century Link Stadium, and Steve Sarkisian's UW team won 38-21 in 2011 while Husky Stadium was going through a remodel. A crowd of 64,559 showed up for the late November contest.

This game certainly has a weird feel to it, with both sides feeling sort of forced into it in terms of location.

"Certainly, it's cool to be in an NFL stadium," Fisch said. "It's not as cool as being in our stadium, though. I'd prefer to play this game at home, to be honest with you, to be at our stadium, to be at the greatest setting in college football."

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