These nine years, no Apple Cup winners
Washington and Washington State began playing each other in 1900, and will play for the 100th time on Saturday. A look at the years the teams didn’t play:
1905 and 1906: The schools didn’t play these two seasons because, according to the book “The Crimson and the Gray,” they were “tiffing over some player eligibility matters.”
1909: Might not have played due to what was a controversial ending to the 1908 game when WSU scored on a debated safety in the late going to force a tie and end UW’s perfect season.
1915-16: UW coach Gil Dobie didn’t want to play WSU anywhere but in Seattle. When WSU refused after doing so for four straight seasons, the series took a two-year hiatus. Once Dobie left after the 1916 season (having never played in Pullman and only once in Spokane in nine years as UW coach) the series resumed.
1918: Teams had truncated seasons due to World War I.
1920: No game after the schools could not agree on a proper split of gate receipts. (”The Crimson and Gray” says UW would not agree to a 50-50 split as mandated at the time by Pacific Coast Conference rules.)
1943-44: No games due to World War II (the teams played twice in 1945, the only time they’ve done that).
Bob Condotta