Not too long now to Apple Cup

COUGARS

If you are in, say, Kirkland, today and headed over, pack a lunch. After the snow we got last night, it is probably going to be an all-day trip. Sort of like the journey I embarked on this morning. It seemed to take me hours to plow my way through the blizzard of stories on the Net. But like your journey, I knew I would get to the destination sooner or later. I did. Now you can follow my road map if you just read on.

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• Washington State: By the way, the National Weather Service has issued a dense fog advisory this morning. It’s in effect until 10 a.m. but, according to the weather folks, there is dense fog all over the Palouse, with U.S. 195 hit pretty hard. … For more on the travel conditions, check here (it’s what I use). … We’ll start with basketball, as WSU hosts fifth-ranked Kansas State tonight. We had our advance , as did Bud Withers in the Seattle Times. CougCenter examined K-State and there is this preview from the Wildcats’ angle. … Lewiston’s Ryan Collingwood has a Q&A with the writer of that story. … That should take care of your Basketball Jones (only folks over 45 will get that reference, and even then, it’s pretty obscure). … On to football. … It was quarterback day. We had our feature about the two quarterbacks, Jeff Tuel and Jake Locker. The News Tribune compared Locker and Alex Brink. And the Times had this piece on Tuel keeping his commitment to WSU – as an aside, I heard the same Doug Nussmeier story from Jeff’s dad and asked Jeff about it. He told me no, he never talked with Nussmeier, though his dad might have. He just sent Nussmeier a text after he got the UW job saying Nussmeier had made a mistake, now he had to play him – and this one on his high school teammate Nate Fellner. … Tacoma’s John McGrath writes Paul Wulff’s job might depend on the outcome of Saturday’s game. … Want to know who is going to win? Jim Moore has his pick , though it pains him to make it. And the only football picker in America that weighs more than me has a pick .

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• Around the Pac-10: ESPN.com’s Ted Miller opens his Friday mailbag , in which he deals with an idiot Auburn fan. I know the feeling. A Cougar supporter called me a bastard on my voice mail yesterday for picking the Huskies. Gee, that’s nice. Miller also has things you should know about the games. … San Jose’s Jon Wilner has part of his picks . … Washington: Just about every WSU story linked above has a Husky component, so they’ll have to work for both. … Oregon State: The Beavers’ defense needs to have a big game. The coordinator thinks they will. … And their offense? Should they try to control the ball or go for the home run ? … Oregon: Casey Matthews has turned himself into an excellent linebacker. … Chip Kelly always has a kind word for the rest of the conference. Right. … Cal: Hey, a Bear story . It’s about quarterbacks. … Stanford: Nothing here. … USC: It looks like Matt Barkley will start this weekend. … Could Lane Kiffin really be in trouble ? … UCLA: A day off. … Arizona State: Wow. For a game that started Chitty, it sure ended with a Bang (another old, obscure reference, this one about a movie), with ASU winning 30-29 in double overtime on two blocked extra points. That means three of the Devils’ games this year were decided by point-afters (Wisconsin, USC and UA). … Arizona: The end-of-the-season nightmare continued for the Wildcats with the wild defeat .

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• That’s all of it for this morning. We’ll be back before the basketball game tonight. Until then …