FanPost

Why 2020 Will Be The Year The Cougs Win the Apple Cup, the Pac-12, and Reach the College Football Playoff!

Let’s face it, 2019 was the worst season in recent years for Washington state fans, but after our convincing win over Stanford this past weekend, it shows a sign that our season is beginning to turn around. Washington State has opened as a double-digit favorite down in Vegas and should beat Oregon State handily crushing their bowl hopes in the process if WSU can play like they did against Stanford and Anthony Gordon has just as great a night. The lingering question though is, will it be enough to win the Apple Cup on the road?

Yes, Washington has struggled this season, but I still don’t think the Cougs can emerge victorious in Seattle because, we all know what happened last time we went to Seattle and what has happened every time we’ve gone there since the last time we won in Seattle way back in 2007! The Cougs have been blown out losing by at least 10 points in all of the games played in Seattle.

So I’m calling it here; WSU will go 6-6 and just barely make a bowl game? Where will they go? I’m going to say that the Cougs will go to the Cheez-It Bowl to take on Kansas State or the Vegas Bowl to take on Boise State. The former is the one I’m going to go with for my projection and I believe we could win it. Boise State in the Vegas bowl, maybe not so much even though the Cougs hold a 5-1 series lead against the Broncos. Washington State has never played Kansas State before though the two have scheduled a non-conference series with the Cougs making the trip to Manhattan (Kansas) in 2026 and the Wildcats coming to Pullman in 2029. The Cougs also have a future series with the Broncos in 2026 and 2027. The Broncos come to Pullman in 2026 and the Cougs make the return trip to Boise in 2027.

Anyways, to sum up the 2019 season, we’ll go 6–6, go to a meaningless bowl game, win if it’s one team, probably not win if it’s the other, but I am totally keeping my head up that we salvage this season and at least go 7-6, maybe even 8-5 but I’m not getting my hopes up on that.

Now let’s get to a way too early preview of the 2020 season. The Cougs open with a road trip to Utah State which I believe the Cougs can win easily, then have a two-game homestand against Houston and Idaho. Houston makes the return trip to Pullman for a rematch of this year’s game in Houston and then the Idaho Vandals make the 8-mile trip from Moscow just to be blown out. Like this year, the Cougs will be 3-0 to close out non-conference.

The Cougs have an easier Pac-12 schedule than this year. All of the toughest teams come to Pullman; looking at Utah, Oregon, and Washington. Cal and Arizona State also make the trip to Pullman. The Sun Devils last trip to Pullman came in 2015 where the Cougs won 38-24. WSU then went on to win a close contest in Tempe in 2016 37-32, but came up short this year losing 38-34. I believe Wazzu can easily avenge this loss on the Palouse next season.

Cal comes to town with its last win in Pullman coming in 2014, the last season the Cougs did not go to a bowl game. However, the Cougs have not won in Berkeley since 2013, but that doesn’t matter here. Cal did provide a little scare on their last trip to Pullman in 2018, but the Cougs were able to defend their dream season on a 19-13 victory. WSU will really be looking to avenge their loss to Cal and a sold-out Martin Stadium crowd should be more than enough to do it.

Oregon is back in town as the Ducks are every other year looking to assure that the Cougs do not put a winning streak on the Ducks again. This Ducks team will come to Pullman very motivated, but if we can get GameDay to Pullman again, there is no reason WSU couldn’t win and continue a potentially unbeaten season. Even (probably) without GameDay coming to town, with as difficult a place as Martin Stadium is to play, I believe the Cougs can beat the Ducks.

Utah comes to town as the Cougs will look to go 5-3 against the Utes when the teams have met as Pac-12 foes. This is another potential game with potential to draw GameDay to Pullman again and after these two teams played a classic in Pullman in 2018, I believe that Washington State can win this game and continue what would be another dream season.

And to end the season, it’s always the team we love to hate and love to lose, the Washingtpn Huskies. Every other year, all the Huskie fans make the trip across the state with the loyal Cougs to watch their team do what they always do to us, dominate! Washington has won 9 of the last 10 Apple Cups and of course WSU’s latest Apple Cup victory came in Pullman. As long as snow doesn’t come around or Mike Leach can learn from last year’s snowstorm, the Cougs have a serious chance to win an Apple Cup and close the nearly 40-game advantage Washington has in the series by just one game. Yes it’s just one game, but if the Cougs can win just one Apple Cup in ten tries, I’ll be happy. Especially if it punches our ticket to the Pac-12 Championship Game and even the College Football Playoff and if not that, at least the Rose Bowl.

As for the road trips the Cougs will make in 2020, there are four. Five including the trip to Utah State which should not be denied as a formidable Mountain West foe. The Cougs and Aggies meet for the first time since 1961 and Washington State is 37-15-1 against the Mountain West. Logan, Much like WSU did against Wyoming last year, Wazzu should be more than capable of taking down yet another Mountain West foe.

A road trip to Oregon State should be an easy win, the Beavers won their first home game over a Power 5 foe at home since 2016 last weekend and that streak is just destined to start all over again as we’ll be the team that kicks Oregon State out of bowl eligibility after their best season in 6 years.

A road trip to Colorado? #wegotthis! Did you see what we did to Colorado in Pullman this year and even more impressively, what we did to them on the road in Boulder last year? If you said we kicked their butt, then you are absolutely correct!

If WSU loses any games next year, Stanford will be the perfecr trap game which hopefully it isn’t. All of the scenarios mentioned throughout this post are a fair warning that this will be one of WSU’s toughest road games next season if not the toughest.

A road trip to the Rose Bowl, Pasadena, and UCLA will hopefully be the first of two trips to Pasadena for the Cougs in 2020. A perfect setting to avenge this year’s disaster. After all, Oregon State beat the Bruins on the road.

So what if the Cougs do go 12-0, win the Pac-12 Championship Game and potentially go to the College Football Playoff? It would cap off a dream season, make up for their rather mediocre year known as 2019 and the perfect sequel to the dream year known as 2018. I have faith that Mike Leach can pirate this team to at least a 11-1 season and perhaps even better, a perfect 12-0, Pac-12 Championship, College Football Playoff year! Could Wazzu even win the National Championship. A 1-10 record against the SEC certainly doesn’t show signs of that happening, but the Cougs have not played the SEC since a 2013 road trip to Auburn that Wazzu lost 24-31 so it most certainly could happen. The Cougs could potentially play with the big boys! i.e. Alabama, Clemson, LSU, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Penn State.

For now, we’re pretty much resigned to the Cougs having a mediocre at best 7-6 season. This is not a team that can really win the Apple Cup on the road, but perhaps show that this season wasn’t all that bad after all by winning their bowl game. As mentioned earlier, the two most likely bets are Vegas to play Boise State and Cheez-It to play Kansas State. The Cougs certainly have what it takes to win either of these games and I believe they can. As always, Go Cougs! Here’s to hopefully the best season ever in 2020! Do you think so too?

This FanPost does not necessarily reflect the views of the site's writers or editors, who may not have verified its accuracy. It does, however, reflect the view of this particular fan, which is just as important as the views of our writers or editors.