SEATTLE – For the WSU Cougars, it will go down as one of the best Apple Cup moments in program history. For the UW Huskies, it was a play call that will undoubtedly be questioned by their fans.

More Apple Cup coverage: Recap | Observations | WSU Notebook | WSU Coach: Is it time to retire the trophy?

Trailing by five points with 1:07 left in the annual in-state rivalry game, the UW Huskies had a 4th-and-goal from the 1-yard line. After a timeout, quarterback Will Rogers took a shotgun snap and ran a speed option to the right, which was the short side of the field.

WSU’s defense blocked his path to the end zone, forcing him to throw the ball to running back Jonah Coleman. With little room between Coleman and the sideline, multiple WSU defenders closed in and brought the 5-foot-9, 229-pound back to the ground for a loss of 2 yards, ultimately helping to seal the Cougars’ 24-19 Apple Cup triumph on Saturday afternoon at Lumen Field.

“That’s my fault,” UW head coach Jedd Fisch said. “I made a bad call. We didn’t execute the call. We lost the game. So I take that. I’m the play caller. I’m responsible. And we didn’t do it.”

Fisch said the plan was to target senior wide receiver Giles Jackson on a passing play before the timeout. Jackson had a great game, making eight catches for 162 yards and a touchdown — including a deep 45-yard reception that sparked UW’s final drive to the 1-yard line.

“Giles played a great game,” Fisch said. “We tried to give Giles the ball at first for the last touchdown on 4th-and-1, but we probably should have. He played a great game.”

Fisch said he didn’t like the first look from WSU’s defense, prompting him to switch to the speed option call after the timeout. He said the speed option was a play the Huskies had in the pocket all week.

“We felt like that would be our must-have-it call if we ever needed one for a yard,” Fisch said. “(It) looks like on tape, or on the quick screen that I saw, we didn’t block it right. … I didn’t like the look we had, so we changed the call to that. We probably should have just let it run the first time and see what it would have looked like.

“But I think if you throw it incomplete, you should have executed it. If you execute it, if you don’t get it, you should have executed it. That was the call we had against that front, and we’ve got to do a better job of blocking and executing it. But it clearly didn’t work.”

WSU head coach Jake Dickert praised his defensive staff for making the right playmaking decisions.

“We showed them a look that we’d done before, but we made a little change to it,” Dickert said. “… So they thought they were going to get the speed option out the back door, and we didn’t give them the blitz look that it looked like it was going to be. I thought they made the right decision with what we showed them, but kudos to our defensive staff. That’s two weeks in a row that we just came up with a great plan and our guys just flew around and made plays.”

That fourth-down play capped an afternoon of missed opportunities for the Huskies’ offense. UW outscored WSU 452-381 in total yardage and didn’t commit a turnover, instead settling for field goals far too often. UW snapped the ball inside the WSU 30-yard line on five different drives, but came away with just 12 points on those five possessions — four field goals and the last-minute turnover on downs.

“You can’t trade touchdowns for field goals,” Fisch said.

EXPENSIVE FINES

The Apple Cup was a veritable parade of penalties for the Huskies. UW finished with 16 penalties for 135 yards, including 10 defensive flags for 100 yards.

The costliest penalty came on WSU’s first possession of the second half. With the Cougars facing a 3rd-and-18 from their own 26-yard line, the Huskies tackled John Mateer for a loss of 10 yards, which would have forced a punt. But instead, UW cornerback Jordan Shaw was assessed a defensive holding penalty, giving WSU an automatic first down.

Three plays later, the Cougs were in the end zone. WSU followed the automatic first down with a 37-yard gain by running back Wayshawn Parker, an 11-yard reception by Kris Hutson and a 16-yard TD reception by Josh Meredith that extended the Cougars’ lead to 24-16.

“We had way too many penalties,” Fisch said. “We had 10 more penalties than they did. You don’t usually win when you have that many penalties in a game. I’m very disappointed with the 15-yard penalties we had. We’ve got to be a lot better there. Again, I take responsibility for that, and we’re going to be better there. That’s not who we are, and that’s not how we play.”

Penalties also denied the Huskies the chance to get the ball back in the final seconds.

With 1:02 left on the clock, UW had pushed the Cougars back to a 3rd-and-11 from their own 2-yard line. But the Huskies jumped offsides on back-to-back plays, making it 3rd-and-1 from the 12. More importantly, the penalties ultimately kept the clock running and prevented WSU from having to snap the ball again.

If the Huskies had come up with a stop on 3rd-and-11, they could have forced WSU to punt from their own end zone with about 15 seconds left. The Cougars could also have elected to call a safety, which would have allowed them to bleed out a few more seconds and punt or kick further down the field.

Either way, two consecutive offside penalties ended the Dawgs’ chance of a last-second miracle.

The Huskies have committed 30 penalties for 288 yards in their first three games, including eight penalties for 100 yards in last week’s win over Eastern Michigan.

“Really, really disappointed in 16 penalties,” Fisch said. “And I don’t have a good answer as to what I attribute it to, but I know I need to get it fixed.”

BRUENER INJURED

UW senior linebacker Carson Bruener was injured after tackling Mateer in the fourth quarter. He appeared to have injured his arm or shoulder. Fisch had no update on Bruener’s status after the game.

Bruener, a Redmond High School alum, has 217 tackles in his four seasons with the Huskies. He was the third-leading tackler on last year’s national runner-up team.

LOOKING AHEAD

One challenge of this year’s Apple Cup is that UW won’t have much time to dwell on the loss, as it normally does after a late-season rivalry game. The Huskies make their Big Ten debut next Saturday against Northwestern at Husky Stadium.

“It’s just a really sad locker room right now with a lot of sad guys that have to recover because unlike a normal year where this is the last game of the year, we play Northwestern in seven days, and our job is to be ready for that game and never let a team beat us twice,” Fisch said.

More about the UW Huskies

• WSU Reclaims Apple Cup, Defeats UW Huskies 24-19 With Late Goal-Line Stand
• Firsthand observations of WSU’s 24-19 Apple Cup win over UW Huskies
• Caple’s UW Huskies Notebook: Apple Cup approaching, injury update

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