When the Seahawks somehow extricated a 38-37 overtime victory over the Rams Thursday night, the obvious perks of their wild night were cited:

 They qualified for the NFL playoffs.

 They edged out to the pole position for the No. 1 seed in the NFC.

Lost (except perhaps to ardent followers of unbelievable endings in the Apple Cup rivalry) was the fact the state of Washington now lays claim to outstripping the other 49 as the undisputed leader in unforgettable backward-pass absurdities.

Until Thursday night, we’d only had the climactic play in the 2002 Washington-Washington State Apple Cup – probably the most memorable Apple Cup of all – to hold onto. But with 6:20 left in the fourth quarter, here came the sequel. And as controversial as was the 2002 “backward pass,” this one exceeded it in at least one aspect.

Behind 30-28, the Seahawks were trying to complete a madcap comeback with a two-point conversion. Sam Darnold, throwing a screen to his left to running back Zach Charbonnet, fired the ball oh-so-close-to-parallel to the line of scrimmage.

It hit Rams defensive lineman Jared Verse around his shoulder pads. LA safety Kam Curl dove for the interception, futilely, and the ball sort of lolled laterally, just inside the goal line. Charbonnet pursued it – languidly – and picked it up.

“Al, this may be a backwards pass,” rules analyst Terry McAulay said to TV play-by-play man Al Michaels. And suddenly, Seahawk fans’ world was aflame with possibility.

Michaels noted, probably correctly, that the crowd at Lumen Field would have had no idea what was going on as officials stopped the game. You wonder how many of them had even noticed Charbonnet picking up the ball.

In a moment, referee Brad Allen delivered the verdict, and before he could finish, it certainly seemed as though the crowd was hip to the proceedings.

“After reviewing the play, the quarterback threw a backward pass (huge roar), which was recovered in the end zone by the offense,” Allen said. “It is a successful conversion.”

Two points, then, tie game, enabling the Seahawks to breathe to an overtime, and a victory resuscitated.

Darnold’s throw was indeed backward, if by the skinniest of margins. When it glanced off Verse, it might have been a foot behind the trajectory launched by Darnold’s hand.

Did a whistle blow when the ball hit the ground? On X (formerly Twitter) Friday, McAulay referenced his tweet of November, 2023, citing a rule that – surprisingly – renders that issue of no consequence in this case.

McAulay tweeted back then: “In the specific cases of fumbles or backward passes when incorrectly ruled down by contact or incomplete forward pass, respectively, replay rules allow the ball to be awarded to the recovering team if that recovery is in the immediate continuing action. When or if the whistle is sounded is completely irrelevant.”

So we’re saying that the No. 1 seed in the NFC, possibly the winner of the Super Bowl, may have been decided when Charbonnet picked up the ball before it quit rolling.

The aspect of “continuing action” lent a new twist to the 2002 Apple Cup melodrama. None of this applied then, because it was immediately recovered by the Huskies at their 25-yard line – in yes, another overtime game, won by Washington, 29-26.

You may not need a keen memory to relive the particulars, as I recounted them in “Too Good to Be Through,” my recent book on the rivalry.

WSU backup quarterback Matt Kegel unfurled a pass in the same direction as Darnold’s. Before it could travel as far as Darnold’s, it was batted by Washington defensive end Kai Ellis. After an official’s conference, referee Gordon Riese said he was left with no choice but to back up his line judge, Roger McMinn, who ruled it a backward pass and thus a fumble.

Thursday night, I almost expected Gordon Riese to proclaim over the P.A. system, “ . . . Zach Charbonnet has recovered that backwards pass . . . “

Twenty-three years ago, Riese intoned, “The ruling on the field is it was a backwards pass. Washington recovered that backwards pass, and the game is over.”

It wasn’t a popular ruling with WSU students, who heaved bottles. Nor did it fly with very many knowledgeable people, including the Pac-10 coordinator of officials Verle Sorgen, who called the judgment “wrong” in our 2022 conversation.

Things weren’t quite as sophisticated back in 2002. The Seahawk-Ram game, of course, featured far more camera angles, including an overhead shot that defined the pass as backwards. And I’m guessing the issue of the whistle has to do with the fact that, as McAulay cited “replay rules,” there was no replay review in college games in 2002. (Indeed, Riese told me in our 2022 conversation that he asked his officiating crew if anybody had blown a whistle. Nobody had, and that was clearly a key factor in Riese’s decision.)

Sorgen saw the Apple Cup ruling as so distasteful that he ordered a new rules interpretation governing such bubble screens. Henceforth, they would automatically be judged forward passes.

I tried, without success Friday, to reach Riese to see if he had seen the night’s events.

Anyway, you can’t say our state is known merely for apples and wheat and Douglas firs and Mount Rainier. Nobody does backwards-pass histrionics like we do.