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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Grip on Sports: Let preps have own night

Friday’s should be spent celebrating the training ground of football. (Jesse Tinsley)
A Grip On Sports

Friday: Remember that really cool book, movie and television show, “Friday Night Lights?” It was all about Pac-12 football, wasn’t it?

Of course it wasn’t. It was about high school football.

Friday night should be reserved for the training ground of the sport. It isn’t tonight. If you are a Washington State football fan and want to watch the Cougars live as they strive to upset the Cardinal, you can’t attend a high school football game. Just can’t.

Think about this. The NFL wants to take over the television world. But even it understands Friday nights should be left for the preps. So no games. College football isn’t so smart. How simple would it be for the NFL to be left alone on Sunday, colleges on Saturday and high schools on Friday? Pretty darn simple.

Instead, we have college football on most every night – except Sunday, no one would be idiotic enough to challenge the monolith – including a night that should be reserved for 15- and 16-year-olds getting their moments in the (artificial) sun.

•How do you feel about this? According to a couple of reports, if the NFL moves two teams to Los Angeles in the coming years, it may, through a series of events, mean the Seahawks would move back to the AFC West. The rivalry with the 49ers – white-hot these days – would be kaput. So would the one with the Raiders, which was such a big deal back in the day. The reason? One of the series of events would have the Raiders take the Hawks’ spot in the NFC West. Yes, this is still early in the process. But if it does happen, wouldn’t that tick you off a bit?

Thursday: Yesterday my Twitter feed was abuzz with a GIF posted concerning Gerard Wicks’ first-down run from the 4-yard line against California in the final minute of WSU’s 60-59 loss on Saturday. The series of pictures show Wicks’ final lunge to the end zone and his seemingly successful attempt to get the nose of the ball over the goal line before his left knee hits down. Any Cougar fan watching the GIF would probably be apoplectic seconds after it was over. The play probably was a touchdown. The Cougs should have led 65-60 (even if the extra point was missed) and California should have been facing a long field and less than a minute to traverse it. But not only wasn’t the play ruled a touchdown in real time, it wasn’t even reviewed.

Sometimes I wonder why there is replay at all. Saturday night, the myriad of stoppages to review mundane plays helped push the game time to more than four hours. Yet, the one play that really needed to be reviewed wasn’t. There are many reasons for that, including how quickly the Cougars snapped the ball for their next play – remember, the clock was winding down – but still, the lack of review on such a crucial play seems to invalidate the whole process. That could just be me, of course, but I’m sure it’s a thought that’s entered into a lot of fans’ minds. After all, you sit and watch a game, investing a quarter of your waking hours in a day and you have to trust a system that is in place to “get it right.” When it works as well as a 1974 Vega, you begin to lose faith in the people overseeing it.