Apple Cup Games

Every fall since 1945 (and many years before that), football teams from Washington and Washington State gathered to temporarily settle their cross-state rivalry on the playing field.  Known as the Apple Cup, the annual game always provokes alma mater emotions.  It sometimes produces upsets and bowl game spoilers, since it’s traditionally the last game of the regular season.  Recent spoilers include the games of 1992, 2002, and 2003, when the un-ranked teams knocked off nationally ranked contenders.

The rivalry isn’t exactly even. The Huskies have a 71-32 +6 ties (.685) advantage over the 109 game, 116 year run.  The Cougars best decade was the 1950s when they split the ten games between 1950 to 1959. (They won five of nine recently, in years spanning into two decades, 2004-12.)  The Huskies had the advantage in every other formal decade, with the best coming in the 1910s when they won six of seven.  Twice UW won eight games in a decade (1960s and 1970s).  Twice they won eight consecutive games (1959-66 and 1974-81). The Cougars have never won more than two games in a row. The most even stretch for the two schools was from 1945 to 1958 when each team won seven.

Below is a complete list of Apple Cup games from 1900 through 2015.  For convenience, we’ve labeled the schools UW and WSU throughout the list, although they weren’t known as such as far back as 1900.  The rivalry game itself didn’t even take on its current name until 1962.  The Governor’s Trophy was awarded to the winner starting in 1934.

APPLE CUP RESULTS, 1900-2015

November 25th, 2016