California will watch Apple Cup
As usual, the Apple Cup will get plenty of attention this weekend throughout Washington, but this season there also is a lot of interest in California.
If Washington State beats Washington, the Cougars will represent the North Division in the Pac-12 championship. If the Huskies win, Stanford will get the nod to play against South Division champ USC, which has a bye this week.
“It should be a great game,” USC head coach Clay Helton said during Tuesday’s conference call with the media. “I love a game with two elite quarterbacks competing in it. When you talk about Jake (Browning) and Luke (Falk) competing for the Apple Cup, that’s a fun game. I’ll definitely have my popcorn and Coke and will be watching it.”
Helton hasn’t asked his players whether they prefer to face Stanford or Washington State in the Pac-12 title game, but he said it’s human nature to “want to recapture what you’ve lost.”
USC beat the Cardinal 42-24 on Sept. 9 and lost to the Cougars 30-27 on Sept. 29. The Trojans reviewed video of both potential opponents this week and will go into full preparation mode once they know whom they’ll play.
Stanford plays Notre Dame at 5 p.m. Saturday, the same time the Apple Cup kicks off.
Head coach David Shaw said the Apple Cup score won’t be consistently scrolling at Stanford Stadium, but updates on the score might be announced during timeouts.
“For us, we’ve got to play a game,” he said. “I don’t mind if our guys have an idea of what’s going on someplace else. They’re always scrolling scores, and things happen. ‘Hey, the score’s going the way we want. OK, great. It’s 3rdand-6. Let’s go back and make a play.’ ” Bowl berths: Seven Pac-12 teams are bowl eligible and the winners of the games between Cal and UCLA and Colorado and Utah will give the conference nine teams in the postseason.
There was some question as to whether the Bruins would accept a bowl bid because they fired head coach Jim Mora on Sunday, but interim head coach Jedd Fisch put that to rest.
“They’ve obviously been roller-coaster-like and emotional, based on my family’s relationship with Jim, my personal relationship with Jim and why I came to UCLA when he reached out,” Fisch said of the past few days. “On the same token, I’m now trying to do everything I can to help our team and our players. I’ve taken on the responsibility of trying to lead this team to 6-6 and 6-0 at home. This is a team that Coach Mora recruited. This is a team that Coach Mora coached to 5-0 at home.
“I’m just going to try to continue that for one more home win, get this team to a bowl game and hopefully let them celebrate doing that for him.” Rivalry remarks: In a week during which the Washington schools, Oregon schools and Arizona schools will play rivalry games, there’s a lot of banter being tossed back and forth. Arizona State head coach Todd Graham probably had the best line: “One of the things you get measured by at Arizona State is whether you get it done in this game. … It’s probably the No. 1 way you’re going to be measured as a Sun Devil football player. Nothing else needs to be said than that.”