The Apple Cup is the name of the annual intrastate rivalry football game played by the Pac Ten Conference rivals the University of Washington Huskies and the Washington State University Cougars. These two universities have met 102 times in the history of the Apple Cup rivalry. Each season, the winner of this much-anticipated match goes home with the coveted Apple Cup trophy, a traveling trophy that remains at the school that won the most recent contest.
The University of Washington is located in Seattle, Washington (the largest city in the state). Approximately 285 miles east of Seattle is the city of Pullman, Washington, home to the main campus of the Washington State University Cougars. The specific location of the annual Apple Cup game alternates between Martin Stadium (capacity 35,117) in Pullman and Husky Stadium (capacity 72,500) in Seattle. It takes about four and a half hours for students to travel from one campus to another for away football games.
The annual game between the two largest universities in the state takes place on the Saturday following the Thanksgiving holiday and marks the final game of the regular season. Before the 2007 season, the game was historically played on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, but because the college football schedule was expanded to 12 games, the Apple Cup game was recently pushed back to the weekend after Thanksgiving Day to preserve its spot as the final game of the regular season.
The story of how the Apple Cup title became associated with this rivalry is quite brief. For much of this rivalry’s history dating back to November 1900, state opponents called it the Governor’s Trophy game, but that changed in 1962. Beginning with the 1962 game, the name of the annual meeting between the two universities changed from the Governor’s Trophy to the Apple Cup in recognition of the apple orchids and apples for which the state of Washington is so well known.
Although the name change officially occurred in 1962 when college football historians discuss the record these two schools have against each other in the Apple Cup, they generally count wins and losses since the first meeting on November 30, 1900 that ended in a 5-5 tie (a very odd final score by modern standards). During the 102 meetings these programs have had on the iron grid, the University of Washington leads the overall series with a count of 65-31-6.