ASSOCIATED PRESS It took a parking lot incident for Washington State's Jason Gesser, a St. Louis alumnus, to fully grasp the Cougars' rivalry with Washington. The teams face off tomorrow for the Apple Cup.

Gesser gets rivalry

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Associated Press

SEATTLE >> It takes a lot to rattle Washington State quarterback Jason Gesser. He hit the boiling point after last season's Apple Cup loss to Washington.

Apple Cup A look at the Washington-Washington State rivalry Who: Washington (6-5) at No. 3 Washington State (9-1) Trophy: Apple Cup Series: Washington leads 61-27-6 2001 result: Washington won 26-14 First game: 1900 (tie, 5-5) Stakes: Washington State, third in this week's BCS standings, must win to maintain a national title shot. A victory clinches at least a Rose Bowl trip. The Huskies must win to extend their streak of 25 straight winning seasons. Rivalry note: Washington's Rick Neuheisel is unbeaten in three Apple Cups and his team's four-game winning streak is the longest in the series by either side since the Huskies won eight straight from 1974-81. Stat: Oddsmakers have installed the Cougars as an 8-point favorite, only the sixth time in the last 46 years that Washington was the underdog.

Walking through the Husky Stadium parking lot after Washington's 26-14 victory, Gesser was showered with obscenities by a crowd of purple-clad fans. What really steamed him, though, was that his mother and aunt were with him.

The fans let them have it, too.

"Being on the field and having fans yelling at you is one thing," said Gesser, a St. Louis graduate. "When you're off the field, when you're with someone special like your mom or your auntie, that's different.

"They didn't have enough class to keep it in."

The surprising part of the story is that it took so long for Gesser to grasp the depth of the rivalry.

As a freshman, he played only a few series of mop-up duty in a 24-14 loss. As a sophomore, he missed Washington State's 51-3 defeat with a broken leg.

"I never was able to understand the hype, the magnitude, because I couldn't be a part of it," he said.

Last year, Gesser got the message.

"That was the first time I really got the feeling, the way the fans are, the way people are about it," he said. "That stayed with me. I've had the rivalry taste in my mouth since walking through that parking lot with my mom."

Growing up in Honolulu, Gesser always thought a good college rivalry game was a high-scoring shootout between Hawaii and BYU.

It's a similar story for Washington quarterback Cody Pickett. He's from Caldwell, Idaho, where watching college football meant driving an hour to see Boise State play in the days when the Broncos dominated the Division I-AA Big Sky.

"I was never really into the college games as a little kid," Pickett said.

Gesser and Pickett stumbled into one of the nation's biggest rivalries. Recruited to the quarterback-rich Pac-10, they landed on opposite sides of the Apple Cup.

They understand now.

"We're cross-state rivals," Pickett said. "This is a big-time game."

Huskies linebacker Ben Mahdavi is from Mercer Island, Wash., where nobody had to explain anything to him.

"It's like having a brother," Mahdavi said. "You always fight with your brother. No matter what, you're always going to have that fight. Anyone who has a brother knows you're going to get beat up, too."

The Huskies (6-5, 3-4 Pac-10) have been handing out the punishment in recent years. Washington has won four straight, giving coach Rick Neuheisel a 3-0 record in one of the biggest games on his schedule.

This year, though, it's the No. 3 Cougars (9-1, 6-0) who look like the bully. Washington State is in the national title hunt, and a victory tomorrow assures the Cougars of no worse than a Rose Bowl trip.

"The Apple Cup is always a big game," Washington State cornerback Marcus Trufant said. "It makes it that much bigger with a lot on the line."

The Huskies, meanwhile, lost three straight this fall but then beat rivals Oregon State and Oregon, and another win would give them the mythical Northwest championship. It also would give them 26 straight nonlosing seasons.

"They're playing for big things. We're playing for other things," Washington safety Greg Carothers said.

You think Neuheisel's feeling some heat? He spit out staccato responses at his weekly news conference, a big turnaround for one of the chattiest coaches in college sports.

He also closed practices this week for the first time in his four-year tenure.

"It's a big game," Neuheisel said. "You bear down. You work. You play your best."

In bar rooms and offices across the state, fans of each side are wagging their tongues and placing wagers. They're also reminiscing about the great victories by both sides.

One of the biggest moments in Washington State history came in the 1997 Apple Cup, when Ryan Leaf passed for 358 yards in a 41-35 victory that secured the school's first Rose Bowl berth in 67 years.

"There's a lot on the line here, a lot of history here," Huskies guard Elliott Zajac said. "Guys are really taking this to heart."