Jedd Fisch will have an opportunity to pull ahead in the Apple Cup with his third this Sunday.
Washington Huskies head coach experienced the highs and lows of the Apple Cup in his first two seasons at the helm of the team.
In his first year as head coach in 2024, in front of Seattle-based crowd at the home of the Seattle Seahawks, Lumen Field, his Huskies were stopped on fourth-and-goal at the 1-yard line and the Washington State Cougars held on to win 24-19.
In Fisch's second Apple Cup, which took place last year in the Cougars' backyard of Gesa Field in Pullman, Wash., Washington was able to have significantly more success and beat Washington State 59-24.
The pair of results put Fisch an even 1-1 in the annual in-state rivalry game. He'll have an opportunity to secure a winning record against the Pac-12-based foes in the Apple Cup at 1 p.m. PT on Sunday at Husky Stadium in Seattle, which will double as both team's season-opener.
Fisch would become the 10th head coach in Huskies football history with a winning record against the Cougars.
Washington State will enter Sunday with an almost completely-revamped roster under first-year head coach Kirby Moore, who's coming off a multi-season stint as the offensive coordinator with the Missouri Tigers in the Southeastern Conference (SEC).
However, despite the continuity of Washington entering this game and the unknowns of the Cougars' roster, Fisch isn't lying on his laurels or the most recent Apple Cup results.
"(Last year's) game was fun," Fisch said in a weekly news conference Wednesday. "It was fun. But it wasn't fun until about eight minutes left in the fourth quarter. There was a pit in my stomach those other 52 minutes and that's how I feel right now. I don't feel any different than I did going into the game. ... We have all of our trophies in our whole building upstairs. We have an entire trophy case upstairs, except for one. The one trophy that we leave in front of the locker room is the Apple Cup. And that's cause that's the players' trophy. That's the one that, for the rest of your life as a player, you're gonna remember if you won or didn't win the Apple Cup. We make sure our team understands that the only trophy that isn't upstairs by the coaches, is the one that they're going to be talking about for the rest of their lives."
To add to the importance of Sunday, it might also be one of the last Apple Cups ever. The current contract between the two universities for the game, which has been played over 100 times since 1900, ends after 2028.
Fisch said in a news conference earlier this week that he hopes the Apple Cup will continue beyond that point.
