So, who’s excited for the Apple Cup? Come on, come on, don’t be shy. Just raise those hands! No, seriously, who’s pumped up? Hello? Anyone? Is this thing on?
All right, I get it, I get it.
I’m not either.
Who could be?
Who in their right mind could possibly be excited about watching the newly crowned worst team in the Pac-10 play its feared rivals, losers of two straight and with the worst injury issues in the conference?
I get the whole rivalry thing, but come on. Rivalry or not, this is going to be a hopelessly uninteresting game to watch.
Other than it being my job (which is a good reason), someone please tell me why I should drive over what should be a snowy pass to cover an awful football game? I can’t think of a good reason.
Not after watching a Washington team I thought had turned things around instead regress back to a team that looked like it wanted nothing to do with being on a football field. Indeed, it may have been the most uninspired, dispassionate and sad performance I’ve seen on a football field.
It looked like the Huskies expected to simply come out on the field and have Stanford roll over, and when the Cardinal actually showed up for the game and put a team on the field, the Huskies said, “Forget this, we’re outta here,” and folded things up.
There was, to be perfectly honest, no hint of a heart beating within the Washington football team. Well, there was one, but its owner was on crutches watching in agony, as he has the past few weeks.
Ever since quarterback Isaiah Stanback was lost for the season, this team has been one that looked mostly like it just wanted the season to be over. And congratulations, now, for all intents and purposes, it is.
There will be no bowl game for the Huskies, a shocking turnaround after they started the year 4-1. At that point, it was a matter of where they’d be going, not if. That question is still relevant, but it has nothing to do with a bowl game anymore.
Where is this program going? Why should anyone have any faith in a program that so clearly could not muster even a bit of competitive fire in a game it had to win, playing at home, against a lousy team? What is there to by into?
I’d say that there has been improvement over last season, but has there been? Can we really say that after seeing these guys lose 20-3 to Stanford, a team that Western Washington might compete with? Washington won four games because the defense has been pretty good and Stanback was an incredible athlete who could make up for a lot of deficiencies. But what is there really left to fall back on to generate some optimism?
How do you get excited about a team that doesn’t seem at all excited about itself?
That’s the challenge this week. After watching the Huskies sleepwalk through one of the biggest games they’ve played, are you willing to still throw your unwavering support behind them? Have they done enough this year to earn your trust that last week was an anomaly? Or have you seen enough?
I’m not sure there’s a right or wrong answer. But it’s too bad you’re faced with that decision.
Mike Allende is The Herald’s college football writer. His UW blog can be read at www.heraldnet.com/huskies.
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