No. 6 Washington tops No. 23 Washington State 45-17

Both teams had everything to play for in this game: The Pac-12 North division title and a trip to the conference championship and in-state bragging rights for a year.

The trio in Washington State’s back field has collected over 1,500, yards and have reached the back of the end zone an impressive 21 times in 2016.

The presidents of the two institutions have a wager involving Cougar Gold cheese and salmon and wearing the opposing victorious school’s colors. He’s 1-3 against the Huskies at WSU, his only win coming in 2012 when the Cougars rallied from an 18-point fourth-quarter deficit and won in overtime against the Huskies coached by Steve Sarkisian. Washington State quarterback Luke Falk has passed for 3,935 yards and 36 touchdowns this season and leads a passing attack ranked No. 2 nationally at 380 yards per game. To have a chance to impress the voters, though, the Huskies have to beat the Cougars in the 2016 Apple Cup Friday afternoon. “I thought we were too quick to press and made more out of it than it was”.

This is the 109 meeting between Washington and Washington State. Mainly because it’s hard (if not downright impossible) to find a game in the series, where the stakes were as high for both teams. You know the ones I’m talking about.

According to oddsmakers from online sports book BetDSI, the Cougars are 6-point home underdogs versus the Huskies while the over/under now sits at 63.5 points. And once again, we can look to the quarterback: Luke Falk has put himself on the National Football League radar with the quality of his play over the second half of the season.

Weather is going to be a factor as the forecast calls for cold, wet, windy weather. This will probably dampen the crowd and neutralize WSU’s home field advantage. Whether that means they win the Apple Cup, though, remains to be seen. They are 28th in the country against the run, allowing 130 yards per game. The Huskies tackle well and that just wasn’t going to work. The Cougars have had this game circled on their calendar since the start of the season.

The Utes were rolling into the upper echelons of the NCAA over the past few weeks before suffering an embarrassing defeat to the pitiful Oregon Ducks last week on a last second touchdown pass from Oregon’s Justin Herbert to Darren Carrington.

“We came close early in the game to doing some good things until we let them off the hook”, WSU coach Mike Leach said. John Ross and Dante Pettis are the one-two punch for the Huskies when Jake Browning is throwing the ball around on Saturdays.

UW was far from flawless in the first half, though, struggling to get its run game going, mounting seven penalties – most committed by offensive linemen – and a lost fumble by Ross. But I’ve got some fantastic teammates. My parents would say, ‘Why can’t you be more like the Petersen boy?

(On whether teams should try to score more points to impress the CFP committee) “I don’t know about all that stuff, I really don’t”. “But I’ve got news for the man”. They kept grinding, then towards the end of the season they started to get into a better rhythm on offense, and then they came back in January and it was kind of an excited feeling they had that never wavered from that at all.

The Cougars’ own missed opportunities loomed much larger.

“Everybody we play now is playing us differently than they played us three years ago”, Jim Mastro, Washington State’s running backs coach, said in the days leading up to Friday’s Apple Cup vs. Although if there’s anyone who can stay steady enough to do that against the Huskies, it’s Luke Falk.

But for many of us, football is also at top of mind.

Or I could take the easy way out, curl up in fetal position, and go with 49-0.