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Jacob Thorpe

Jacob Thorpe

Current Position: Sports columnist

Jacob Thorpe is a freelance sports columnist covering Washington State football.

All Stories

Sports

WSU faces Butler in Old Spice Classic opener today

PULLMAN – The Washington State basketball team won’t be home for Thanksgiving this year. Instead the Cougars have traveled all the way to Orlando, Fla., to take part in the Old Spice Classic. “In this business you spend most Thanksgivings with your team,” coach Ken Bone said. “This will be an enjoyable one because we have a great group of kids that like hanging out with each other.”
Sports

Pac-12 Conference power rankings

Pac-12 dominance has migrated south after the conference’s craziest weekend yet. After years of Oregon and Stanford carrying the conference, Arizona State, USC and UCLA are asserting themselves as the next generation of West Coast powerhouses. A couple of furious comebacks fell short and a couple of favorites were not even competitive against their supposed underdog opponents. Arizona State secured its spot in the Pac-12 championship game outright with a win over UCLA, while Stanford backed into the championship thanks to a shocking upset of Oregon by Arizona. 1 Arizona St. (9-2, 7-1; last week: 4) ASU is the only remaining Pac-12 team without a pair or more of conference losses and cemented its status as the team to beat by holding on for the win at UCLA. The Sun Devils don’t have Oregon’s flash or Stanford’s reputation, they just keep winning football games.
Sports

Simmons, Sarkisian go way back

PULLMAN – Steve Sarkisian and Dennis Simmons will be on opposite sidelines during Friday’s Apple Cup. Though they coach rival schools, it will be the only time this year they aren’t rooting each other on, ignoring the interstate competition in favor of an old friend. “I’ll cheer for him when we’re not playing against him,” Simmons says of Washington’s head coach. “And I’m sure he does the same for me when we’re not playing each other.”
Sports

WSU’s Simmons, UW’s Sarkisian go way back

Steve Sarkisian and Dennis Simmons will be on opposite sidelines during Friday’s Apple Cup. Though they coach rival schools, it will be the only time this year they aren’t rooting each other on, ignoring the interstate competition in favor of an old friend.
Sports

Camp spawned success

PULLMAN – When the Washington State football team beat Utah on Saturday to become bowl eligible for the first time in seven years, many players and coaches wore T-shirts that said “Property of Sacajawea Junior High.” The phrase was an homage to the Lewiston, Idaho, site of the Cougars’ fall camp, where they spent the month of August training for the season away from the WSU campus.
Sports

Cougars credit Sacajawea camp for unity

When the Washington State football team beat Utah on Saturday to become bowl eligible for the first time in seven years, many players and coaches wore T-shirts that said “Property of Sacajawea Junior High.”
Sports

Apple Cup will have bit more pizzazz

PULLMAN – The football coaches at Washington State allow their players 24 hours to reflect after every game to revel in their victory or lament their defeat. But while it would be easy to savor the first time the words “bowl eligible” have been spoken around Pullman since 2006, the Cougars’ minds are already drifting to Washington.
Sports

Cougars go cold in loss to TCU

PULLMAN – It’s not easy for any basketball team to win when it goes a quarter of the game without scoring. Washington State learned that lesson on Sunday, falling 64-62 to visiting Texas Christian University. The Cougars (2-2) jumped out to an early 6-2 lead with 16:48 remaining in the first half. They wouldn’t score again until D.J. Shelton hit a pair of free throws after just over 10 minutes had passed off the clock, putting the Cougars in a an 18-6 hole.