Apple Cup Takes On New Meaning in 2026 -- As Husky Season Opener

The University of Washington football team has seven days to prepare for the upcoming Apple Cup in Pullman, which still seems kind of weird considering it represents the Huskies' third game on the schedule rather than their once traditional regular-season finale.

It gets even stranger in 2026 -- when the UW opens the season against Washington State.

This has never happened before in the previous 116 games of this cross-state college football rivalry.

In less than a year, in 51 weeks, the Huskies and Cougars will get after it on Sept. 5 in Seattle. In week one, barring any unforeseen altering of the schedule between now and then. Three hundred and fifty-seven days away. With no dress rehearsal in advance.

Surprise.

"I would not have even known that until you just said that to me," UW coach Jedd Fisch said this week.

This new way of doing Apple Cup business represents a huge adjustment for everyone involved and their football time clocks.

Before they went their separate ways in conference play -- the UW to the Big Ten and WSU in keeping the Pac-12 afloat -- the schools previously closed out the regular season 84 times against each other.

They did this at Husky Stadium, Martin Stadium, Joe Albi Stadium, Denny Field and Rogers Field.

The Huskies hold up the Apple Cup trophy after winning the rivalry game in Pullman in 2022. | James Snook-Imagn Images

Next year in Montlake, they'll play in their 118th meeting at Husky Stadium without a warm-up game. They'll come right out of fall camp and start hitting each other for real. Except none of this seems familiar in the sequence of the longstanding rivalry.

"College football is different than it once was," Fisch said. "It's not the same scheduiing, not the same focus, different conference."

For the previous 116 UW-WSU football games, these teams have played 11 times in October, once in December (in 2010) and once in September (last year) with another coming next week. Seventy-two percent of the time, this match-up typically was played on or around Thanksgiving.

UW players celebrate with the Apple Cup trophy after beating the Cougars in 2019. | Jennifer Buchanan-Imagn Images

As he prepares for the coming match-up in Pullman, Fisch will tell you he is hardly concerned with a game that will be held next year.

Yet he can look backward and recite how the Huskies have lost two of the past four Apple Cups, both times in Seattle, once on his watch. He and his players will deal with opening the season against the Cougars when the time comes. Either way, they'll show up.

"We've got to get ready for this Apple Cup and get the cup back," the coach said, 0-1 in the series after losing 24-19 at the Seahawks' Lumen Field last year. "We do what we're told. When we're told to play a game, we line up and play it."

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