Moore to kick off Cougar coaching career in Seattle-hosted Apple Cup

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Sep. 6—East versus West, the Palouse vs. the Puget Sound, crimson and gray vs. purple and gold, Cougars vs. Huskies.

The Apple Cup, the annual meeting between the Washington State University and University of Washington football teams, looks quite different than it once did.

For one, it's the Sunday before Labor Day, not after Thanksgiving.

And there is no Pac-12 Conference championship on the line. No potential Rose Bowl trip at stake.

Much like modern college football at large, those abnormal circumstances are now the norm.

Instead, the Big Ten's Huskies enter the 118th Apple Cup as 23 1/2-point favorites over their cross-state rival Cougars who are embarking on their inaugural campaign in the new Pac-12 Conference.

They will also be the only game on TV, as NBC capitalizes on the final Sunday without NFL football to stage a doubleheader featuring the Apple Cup and Wisconsin-Notre Dame later that night. The Cougs and Dawgs kick off at 1 p.m Sunday on NBC.

It's the third Apple Cup for Huskies coach Jedd Fisch. He's 1-1 in the series after losing two years ago at Seattle's Lumen Field and blowing out WSU last season in Pullman.

For WSU's first-year coach Kirby Moore, it's not only his first Apple Cup with Wazzu, but his debut as a collegiate head coach.

While the Cougs are underdogs, Moore's mind is zeroed in on the Dawgs.

"We're going to give it all we've got," Moore said in his weekly radio show. "It's all about 'this play.' I can't wait to see our players go."

The Moore identity

Raised in a football family and the brother of New Orleans Saints head coach Kellen Moore, coaching was a natural line of work for Kirby Moore.

This weekend won't be his first Apple Cup on the sidelines. Moore spent the 2015 and 2016 seasons as a graduate assistant to his Boise State coach Chris Petersen at UW. The Huskies won those Apple Cups handily — as they did in all six of Petersen's seasons.

Moore rose quickly through the coaching ranks, most recently serving as offensive coordinator at Missouri for the past three seasons.

"It's not one of those things for me that I necessarily thought of," Moore said of being a head coach. "I think it's really the focus, just doing as well as I can in the position that I was, whether that was playing, being the receiver coach, being the offensive coordinator. But grateful for everyone who's been a part of that journey."

When his Cougs run out of the tunnel and into enemy territory on Sunday, it will be the first chance for sophomore UC Davis transfer quarterback Caden Pinnick to follow in the footsteps of a long lineage of Cougar quarterbacks. Pinnick, who exactly a year prior to game day was 8-for-16 passing for 50 yards in UC Davis' 70-10 loss at UW, gets a second chance in his first start overall at the FBS level.

Pinnick will seek a better outcome than his last Seattle trip alongside an offense that returned key skill position players such as wide receiver Tony Freeman and running backs Kirby Vorhees and Maxwell Woods.

As WSU's second-leading receiver last year, Freeman hauled in two catches for 28 yards against the Huskies during last year's 59-24 loss.

If Pinnick can get him more involved this time around, Wazzu may be able to put up some points.

Against the Huskies' physical defense, the WSU offensive line — featuring in-state kids Ashton Tripp (Kennewick, Wash.), Kyle Martin (Sumner, Wash.) and potentially Jonny Lester (Spokane) — perhaps has extra motivation to show the state what they can do.

On the other side of the ball, WSU's defense, coordinated by Pac-12 veteran and Pullman High School alum Trent Bray, could make a major statement.

Edges Matyus McLain and Linus Zunk impressed all fall camp long. WSU's veteran safeties Jaylen Thomas and Jeremiah Bernard have done their part, too.

They will need every ounce of skill they can muster against the tall task of UW.

Can the Cougs contain Williams?

He almost wasn't in a UW uniform this season, but after intense public backlash following his transfer portal entry after having already signed an NIL contract in January, quarterback Demond Williams Jr. is back at Montlake.

As one of the most lethal dual-threat QBs in college football, Williams enters his junior year having passed for more than 3,000 yards with 25 touchdowns and eight interceptions last year. He also accounted for 611 yards and six TDs on the ground.

After torching the Cougs for nearly 300 yards passing and 88 yards rushing in last year's Apple Cup, Williams is a force who the returning Cougs are plenty familiar with.

"It's a lot easier said than done," Moore said of stopping Williams. "You look at containing the quarterback and making sure we're sticky in coverage, and it really takes all 11 on defense. And then when you get in those positions, you got to get them on the ground. And if it's not the first guy, the second guy's got to be really close."

In stopping Williams, the Cougs may turn to a player they didn't get to see play last year.

Senior linebacker Keith Brown is back after recovering from a hand injury he suffered prior to last season.

As he puts it, Brown is 1-0 in the Apple Cup, having played a solid role in the 24-19 WSU win in 2024.

"You approach it the same. You have to approach every game the same," Brown said of the Apple Cup. "But you know, when it comes to tackling someone, you always want to try to hit them a little harder."

Still a rivalry?

Is the Apple Cup still a rivalry? The Cougs feel it is. What about the Huskies?

"I just can't wait to go kill them," UW linebacker Xe'ree Alexander said. "It's everything to me, honestly. Growing up, family was a lot of Coug fans, and I got to grow up into the Husky fanbase. I was a little bit on the Coug side growing up, but hanging around my cousin and my uncle more, grew up a Huskies fan. That rivalry between my family is pretty big, so it's great."

Alexander, a former Idaho Vandal who logged 75 tackles for Idaho in 2023, grew up in the Seattle area.

While the Huskies are the clear favorites — based on a larger NIL budget and all-time record, leading the series 77-34-6 — based on public comment, at least, they are not taking WSU lightly.

"The one trophy that we leave in front of the locker room is the Apple Cup," Fisch said. "That's 'cause that's the players' trophy. That's the one you're gonna remember for the rest of your lives if you won or didn't win the Apple Cup."

WSU junior defensive tackle Kaden Beatty certainly remembers not winning the Apple Cup last season. He wants to change that.

"That wasn't us," Beatty said of last year's Apple Cup loss. "We all had a terrible taste in our mouth after that game. So it's awesome to be able to go in and do it over again and get another shot at it."

The basics

What: The Apple Cup: Washington State at Washington

Where: Husky Stadium, Seattle

When: 1 p.m. Pacific today

TV: NBC/PEACOCK

Radio: KHTR-FM (104.3), KCLX-AM (1450), Cougar Sports Network, WSU Cougars Gameday app

Spread: Washington -23.5 (FanDuel)

Taylor can be reached at 208-848-2260, staylor@lmtribune.com, or on X or Instagram @Sam_C_Taylor.

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