No Seattle game in 2010 for WSU
COUGARS
Wondering which game on the football schedule will be played in Seattle this fall? Well wonder no longer. There won't be one this season. Washington State athletic director Jim Sterk said Wednesday that the school couldn't work out the logistics for a Seattle game. The Cougars will return to Qwest Field in 2011, however, as an agreement has been reached to play UNLV in the home of the Seahawks. Read on for our short story.
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• Here's the story ...
PULLMAN – After eight years, Washington State University's annual football trip to Seattle is taking a hiatus.
The Cougars announced Wednesday they were unable to put together their annual contest at Qwest Field for the upcoming season. But athletic director Jim Sterk announced there was an agreement in place to play UNLV at the venue Sept. 11, 2011.
"Throughout the past year we have had ongoing discussions with our partners at Qwest Field about continuing our relationship," Sterk said. "However, the way the 2010 non-conference and Pac-10 schedules came together, playing a game in Seattle was not feasible."
The Qwest game, which began in 2002, is the foundation of the school's Seattle Week. In the eight years, WSU was 5-3, drawing as many as 63,588 to the home of the Seahawks to see the first game vs. Nevada. Last year's game, a loss to Hawaii, drew the second-smallest crowd in the series.
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• As you probably know, there was talk of taking the Sept. 11 Montana State game to Seattle, but the crowd for a Big Sky school probably wouldn't have been enough for the athletic department to break even. The other two non-conference games this fall are return trips to Oklahoma State (Sept. 4), which opened the 2008 season at Qwest, and at SMU (Sept. 18). ... There was some talk of playing the Oct. 9 Oregon game at Qwest, which would be expected to draw well. But many of the fans, in that case, would probably wear green and the loss of any home-field advantage for a Pac-10 contest would have been hard for the football staff to stomach. So no game in Seattle this season. ... One other thing. All the special weekends were set for the schedule as well. Sept. 25 (USC) will be Foundation Day, Homecoming will be Oct. 9, Dad's Weekend comes up Oct. 16 when Arizona is in town and, of course, the Apple Cup is Dec. 4.
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• That's all for now. We'll be back later with our Reggie Moore story. Until then ...
