Grip on Sports: The sun is shining today, mainly because college football is back
A GRIP ON SPORTS • Remember today in late November. Remember how this first full Saturday of college football dawned clear and bright, the sun ready to warm the area to near 100 degrees. Remember how good you felt and how optimistic you were. Because there is no win-or-loss guarantees during a football season. The only guarantee is it will be cold around here as the season winds down. Read on.
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• It’s just another thing to love about college football. The first couple games of the season are usually played in weather suitable for shorts and T-shirts. The last few are usually played in weather suitable for Yetis and puffy coats.
The circle of the seasons and all that.
Today will be one of those hot days, with sweat running down the faces of even the coaches on the sidelines as the sun beats down.
Wait a minute. That entire opening doesn’t work. Whitworth is in Iowa. Eastern Washington is in Texas. Idaho, well, even if Idaho didn’t play Thursday night, the Vandals play indoors.
Only Washington State is at home today. Err, make that tonight. Thanks to the miracle of modern money models, the Cougars are playing one of their usual late-night games.
Now the 7:30 start is nice if you intend to watch on TV – on the West Coast. If that’s the case – you folks in the Eastern time zone, enjoy Sunday brunch with the postgame show – then you have all of your Saturday to do whatever you want, including trimming the bushes, washing the car and cleaning the gutters.
Sorry.
Those of us who will be in Pullman have an excuse. Sorry, honey, we have to nap so we can be coherent in the fourth quarter.
Now I know many of those in attendance, if they are still in the stands during the fourth quarter, won’t be coherent anyway. Through choice – and Captain Morgan.
Those who want to be, coherent that is, have to make another choice. Prep for the game with a couple hours of sleep in the late morning. Or should we do it in the early afternoon? And then head down U.S. Highway 195 for the game.
At least Washington State is guaranteed a victory, right? Oh, ya. No matter what past history indicates. Remember, it was raining when Portland State visited. And Eastern Washington is not your typical FCS school.
Montana State? It isn’t in that category.
Sure, the Bobcats’ head coach, Jeff Choate – the former Post Falls High coach – would love nothing more than to stick it to Mike Leach, who was his boss in Pullman for a year. But MSU doesn’t have the horses. Not against this Washington State team.
Portland State won the Big Sky the year it upset the Cougars. EWU did the same. It’s hard to imagine this Montana State team doing either of those things, winning today or winning the Big Sky. And this might be the best WSU team since the early years of the century.
Then again, we did write at the top there are no win-loss guarantees in college football. So … nope, we’re not waffling here. Not today. The Cougars win. It may not be easy – openers rarely are as the Huskies discovered last night – but it will finish around 11 p.m. with Mike Leach’s first 1-0 record as a WSU coach.
• You will notice something different tonight on the Interweb and in tomorrow’s S-R. The paper is throwing more resources into its Cougar football coverage this season.
You may have already discovered the WSU section of this website, where all the Cougar coverage resides. If you haven’t, click this link and check it out.
There will be even more there tomorrow. Including a column by this guy.
Yes, after each game ends, I’ll supply three takeaways from the game. Nothing fancy, mind you, just a quick look at what happened, good and/or bad.
It will be another of my shoot-from-the-hip-and-hit-an-innocent-bystanding-Ford-F150-pickup opinion pieces.
Feel free to disagree. Feel even freer to agree.
• If you can’t shore up your biggest weakness, then improve your strengths. I think Ben Franklin said that. Or maybe it was John Wooden. I get those two mixed up sometimes.
Anyway, John Schneider decided that was the best course of action yesterday. He dangled wide receiver Jermaine Kearse, who had made a name for himself in Seattle. Was he hoping to find someone willing to trade a left tackle for Kearse? We’ll never know.
What we do know is Schneider was able to entice the New York Jets into giving up Sheldon Richardson, an exceptional defensive lineman with a checkered past.
The Hawks lose something on the offensive side of the ball and gain a guy who gives them something they haven’t had in a while: an inside rusher who demands a double team.
A good-to-great defensive line just became great-to-dominant.
And that makes the entire defense better.
Now about that offensive line …
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WSU: Here we go. Theo Lawson will be covering his first Cougar game for the S-R, and it’s a late one that will probably come down to the final possession. He has an advance of the game and the keys to a WSU victory. … The Times also has an advance and more to read before the game. … From the Montana State perspective, there are these stories as well. … WSU’s quarterback commit struggled a bit against one of Utah’s better teams. … The women’s soccer team upset No. 14 Nebraska, 1-0 last night in Pullman.
Elsewhere in Pac-12 football, Washington opened its promising season last night and though the Huskies won, 30-14, at Rutgers, no one seemed all that happy about it. Not Chris Petersen, not Jake Browning. Maybe Dante Pettis. … Colorado was in action last night and its 17-3 win over Colorado State in Denver seemed pretty typical. The Buffs played great defense and no one was happy with the Pac-12 officiating crew. … It really isn’t a typical Saturday in that four conference teams have already played, one team playing Sunday and another, Stanford, having a bye. But Oregon does kick off the Willie Taggart era in Eugene against Southern Utah. … And Oregon State looks to bounce back from last week’s butt-kicking by Colorado State by defeating Portland State. … California begins Justin Wilcox’s head coaching tenure on the road at North Carolina. … Utah’s win over North Dakota didn’t seem to excite the critics. … USC opens with Western Michigan. … UCLA doesn’t play until Sunday. … Arizona has so many new pieces, no one knows what to expect against Northern Arizona tonight. … Arizona State has a lot to fix after defeating New Mexico State in a tight game.
Gonzaga: Former GU off-court assistant Doug Wojcik found an on-court job near his home in the Carolinas.
EWU: The Eagles open the Aaron Best era on the road, facing the Big 12’s Texas Tech. Jim Allen is in Lubbock and he has this advance of the contest. … We also can pass along a preview from the Lubbock newspaper. … Around the Big Sky, Montana hosts Valparaiso in a warm and smoky Missoula. … Weber State should open with a win. … Cal Poly will try to pull an upset at San Jose State. … Northern Arizona will hope for the same at Arizona. … As will Southern Utah at Oregon. … Northern Colorado is ready to hit someone else. … I missed this yesterday, but Idaho State handled Western Oregon 37-6 on Friday night. Things are still messy in Pocatello.
Whitworth: The Pirates open at Central Iowa. Ryan Collingwood has a preview.
Preps: The first full Friday night of the football season brought fireworks at Albi Stadium. East Valley scored almost 60 points and yet had to stop a last-minute two-point conversion to top North Central, 58-57. Kevin Dudley has that story and another one on Lewis and Clark’s later 28-3 win over Lake City. Tyler Tjomsland has a photo gallery from the shootout that opened the doubleheader. … Greg Lee was in the Valley, watching Coeur d’Alene hold off Central Valley, 29-27. Dan Pelle was also there and has this photo report. … Steve Christilaw has this piece from Post Falls’ 54-40 win over Mead at Roos Field. … We can also offer a roundup of other area football games and another on the girls’ soccer matches.
Indians: Despite its 5-4, 12-inning loss to Everett last night, Spokane remained atop the North Division second-half standings. Whitney Ogden has the story. … Elsewhere in the Northwest League, Boise got past Hillsboro and Eugene defeated Salem-Keizer.
Chiefs: Spokane opened its preseason schedule with a 7-3 loss in Portland.
Mariners: Imagine the joy that comes with a well-pitched seven innings from a starting pitcher. You don’t have to imagine it anymore. Mike Leake delivered one in his first Mariner appearance. … Leake was part of the roster expansion. … The 3-2 win over Oakland allowed the M’s to pick up a half-game in the wild-card standings.
Seahawks: Jerry Dipoto seems to have infected John Schneider. The Hawks’ general manager made three trades yesterday, the biggest of which we discussed above. But he also traded a cornerback away and made a trade for a cornerback. … Cuts come today. Who will make it?
Sounders: The MLS teams are off for the World Cup qualifying window, but it didn’t seem as if Bruce Arena felt he needed Clint Dempsey on Friday against Costa Rica. He did.
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• Besides putting my postgame opinions in print this season, I’ll also be sharing them on the radio again. If you live on the eastside of Washington, you probably can find the postgame call-in show with Derek Deis on the local station that carries the game. If you live outside that area, however, you need to be a bit more creative. I am a big fan of the TuneIn Radio App to listen. You can even set a reminder if you want to nap before the game. Until later …