COVID-19 may claim this year’s Apple Cup
Ed Stein
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Due to COVID-19 concerns, the Washington State Cougars canceled Saturday’s game against Stanford. The annual Apple Cup, just six days later, is now in jeopardy.
The general consensus is 2020 just sucks. One of the few bright spots in this awful year is watching college football. As summer turned to fall, even that wasn’t a sure thing. Eventually, the Pac-12 came around and put together a limited schedule.
In their infinite “wisdom,” the powers that be kept rivalry week. During rivalry week, one of the showcase events is the Apple Cup game, played between the Washington Huskies and Washington State Cougars. Even though It happens mid-season this year instead of the regular season finally, it’s still something to look forward to. Now even that looks uncertain.
On Thursday, news broke that Wazzu freshman quarterback Jayden de Laura tested positive for coronavirus. The Cougs prepared Gunnar Cruz, to take de Laura’s place on Saturday against Stanford.
Unfortunately, it didn’t stop with de Laura. At least nine other Cougar players are in isolation due to contact tracing. That took Wazzu below the requisite 53 scholarship players, which forced them to cancel the game.
https://twitter.com/NicoleAuerbach/status/1329908228625477637
As of now, there is one week until November 27 and the Apple Cup game in Pullman. Hopefully, the Cougars in contact tracing can be corona-free come next Friday. Then the game can go on as scheduled.
Even if the game does happen, it’s unlikely that de Lauria plays in his first Apple Cup. Unless his test was a false positive, he’ll be in quarantine for at least 14 days (unless he had a false positive). Someone else will take the reigns of WSU’s offense.
Meanwhile, all the Washington Huskies can do is prepare for Arizona this week and hope they will play next Friday. If the game happens, it should be a good one between two teams looking to re-establish themselves in the Pac-12 pecking order.