Morning links: Grinch defense returns to the Evergreen State

Alex Grinch may be a young defensive coordinator, but the Grinch defensive legacy in the Evergreen State is practically ancient.

Back in the days when Seattle’s Ingraham High was a perennial football power, esteemed coach Tony Gasparovich’s “GRINCH” defenses were the terror of the Metro League. Few iterations of the GRINCH were as fearsome as the 1971 League Champion one led by Gary Larsen, who went on to become a First-Team All-Conference linebacker at Washington State.
See Frank Inslee, the First-Team All-Metro defensive end in the second row? His older brother was a quarterback at Ingraham and then got into politics.

Gasparovich called his offenses “BLITZ” for the sole purpose of confusing amateur anthropologists half a century later.

So anyway, when you come to this state as a defensive coach with a name like Grinch you’ve got a lot to live up to.

We got the opportunity to speak with WSU’s new defensive coordinator yesterday and here is transcript of everything Grinch had to say, as well as our story in today’s paper. Howie Stalwick wrote a story off the teleconference as well and Jeff Nusser explains his thoughts on the hire.

On the blog we took a look back at WSU’s win over Oregon and in the paper we’ve got an advance for today’s game against Oregon State. We’ve also got a little video to pass along of Kevin O’Neill and Lamar Hurd talking about the Cougars.

Elsewhere in the Pac-12 …

— Washington’s championship-winning volleyball coach is headed to greener (and more golden) pastures .

— One of the biggest games of the Pac-12 season happens today when Arizona hosts Utah. The Wildcats will have a tough time stopping Delon Wright but a freshman could make the difference in the game .

— Either way, Utes fans will be happy that football coach Kyle Whittingham isn’t going anyhere .

— Arizona State knocked down the bleachers at Sun Devil Stadium yesterday.

— California announced the hiring of an offensive line coach .

— Colorado can’t afford to lose today at ASU.

— Oregon may have lost the title match but Marcus Mariota just keeps winning things .

— Gary Payton II’s old man was pretty good, but could he do this ?

— Stanford quarterback Kevin Hogan will return to school .

— UCLA’s Bryce Alford is finally out of his slump .

— USC players past and present wonder why Penn State is getting its victories back but they are not .