A Grip on Sports: The Pac-12 kicks off the final ‘Pac-12’ football season with a Vegas-based media event

A GRIP ON SPORTS • The calendar reminder just popped up on the MacBook. The Pac-12 football media day is underway. In Las Vegas. What will be warmer, the temperature in the Resorts World parking lot or the pressure on the conference hierarchy?

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• We’re pretty sure most Pac-12 football fans care more about their school’s starting quarterback than whether or not the conference has a new media deal that makes everyone from Seattle to Tucson happy. And satisfied.

But we also suspect the status of the second-string outside linebacker doesn’t carry the weight of worry as the conference’s future, which the media deal will either ensure or fracture – depending on the outcome. In fact, we would wager – a great term considering the site of today’s media event – no position other than quarterback holds more interest than the ongoing – seemingly forever – negotiations.

Let’s put that on the back burner – hey, another veiled Vegas reference – shall we? We all know commissioner George Kliavkoff will be bombarded with questions about the interminably long path from USC and UCLA’s defections last summer through the opening of the media negotiations to now, but we’ll wait until he addresses them to comment.

Instead, let’s examine what happened Thursday. That’s when the media’s preseason poll was released. There really wasn’t much surprising, which is something of a surprise.

Of course USC, in its final year as a Pac-12 member, is the favorite. The Trojans return the Heisman Trophy winner, have tried to shore up their defense and have a tradition of winning. That Washington edged out Utah for the second spot (and, if the media is correct, a berth in the conference championship game in, yep, Las Vegas) is a bit eye-opening.

Yes, the Huskies return a lot. But we’ve seen one-year coaching wonders in the conference before and would like to have another couple successful seasons for Kalen DeBoer in Seattle before putting that many chips in the middle of the table. We all know Kyle Whittingham will get the most out of the Utes, despite the school’s penchant for tossing away the occasional key non-conference matchup – and Rose Bowls. Still, we would have put them second.

And we would have flipped Oregon State and Oregon. Again, we’ve seen enough of Jonathan Smith to know he’s built something in Corvallis. And, now, with a quarterback room that features depth and talent, the Beavers are poised to make another leap. Oregon? The Ducks seem to be sliding a bit.

We probably would keep UCLA ahead of Washington State, mainly because we just aren’t sure of the Cougars’ offensive line. It wasn’t good last season – the group gave up 46 sack in 2022 – and will enter this one unproven. Ask us after the Wisconsin game if we feel WSU has a chance to move up the Pac-12 ladder.

The final five schools? A toss-up. California and Arizona should be the best of the lot, with Arizona State, Stanford and Colorado just trying to lay a foundation for the future.

• It seems a bit odd to us the Pac-12 is holding its prime media day on a Friday. A Friday which also contains the first World Cup match for the U.S. women (they are kicking off their three-peat quest), a major golf tournament and, as always, a full slate of MLB games. But it’s the conference’s choice. And you can watch it all on the Pac-12 Network. If, of course, you can access it. If you are like us and are stuck in a motel without the network, then there is always streaming at Pac-12.com

As for the soccer, it’s on Fox today starting at 6 p.m. We watched our neighbors to the north play Thursday night and was surprised to see them come up short against Nigeria. Oh, sure, it was a scoreless draw, but that seemed like a loss for the Canadians.

If you want to watch The Open this weekend, you have to be somewhat of an early riser, as Liverpool is eight hours ahead of the West Coast. But you can see the champion golfer of the year crowned Sunday on NBC.

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WSU: We want to welcome a new member to the S-R family of sports writer. And to the smaller fraternity of folks who lived in Pullman and covered the Cougars. Greg Woods, whose byline has shown up in this column occasionally in the past when we linked his work on Idaho State, has his first S-R story today. It previews the Pac-12 media day, of course. We’ll link tomorrow whatever else he writes concerning the event. … We linked Greg’s story on the media poll above and here as well. … Elsewhere in the Pac-12 and the nation, we have Jon Wilner’s take on the media poll and a story from John Canzano. … There are a few media day previews to pass along, but this one is the most concise. … Wilner also has a mailbag. … Colorado is trying to shore up the defensive line. … Utah will welcome Florida to Salt Lake City this season. … Arizona State will have some new uniforms this year. … Arizona should be asked some tough questions today. … Oregon women’s basketball coach Kelly Graves is entering his 11th year in Eugene. It seems as if he left Gonzaga yesterday.

Gonzaga: Though it may not feel as important as winning, say, a national title, the Zags did continue their domination of national academic awards. Jim Meehan has this story on the latest group of honors. … The Bulldogs also are reported to be getting ready to host Kansas transfer (sort of) Marcus Adams. The 6-foot-8 forward will be a freshman but enrolled at KU before deciding to leave. Theo Lawson has more in this story.

EWU: The Eagles have produced plenty of outstanding players during their time in the Big Sky Conference. But the best may just have been offensive lineman Michael Roos. The tackle will become Eastern’s first member of the conference’s Hall of Fame. Dan Thompson has all the details in this story. … Elsewhere in the Big Sky, Montana State is making improvements to its stadium. … Weber State is making improvements to its football roster.

Indians: A controversial home run kickstarted the Vancouver offense and another Spokane loss. Dave Nichols has the story of last night’s 7-3 defeat at Avista. … Dave also has this story of Rockies’ infielder Brendan Rodgers, in Spokane on a rehab assignment.

Seahawks: The Hawks probably have just as good a shot as anyone in the NFC West.

Kraken: Dave Hakstol talked a bit about his contract extension.

Mariners: We happened to be watching SportsCenter last night when the Mariner highlights came up. Boy, was there lots of gushing about George Kirby’s outing. It was well deserved as Kirby shut out the Twins for seven innings in the M’s 5-0 victory. …The win helped offset the loss of Jarred Kelenic, who broke his foot kicking a water cooler. We get it. Once, after a strike out, we slapped our hand so hard against a wall we’re sure we broke something. Of course, we couldn’t afford an X-ray at the time but it still hurts just before it rains. … Do not expect Seattle to try to go after a big star at the deadline.

Storm: Seattle lost its eighth consecutive game.

Golf: Left-hander Brian Harmon, another of the diminutive golfers we highlighted yesterday, shot a 65 at Royal Liverpool this morning and, as we write this, leads the British Open at 10-under. There was a trio atop the board after the first round and it included an amateur.

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• We understand it’s going to be warm in Spokane today. Well, folks, we are going to be even warmer. We’re going to be in Nevada today, home of Area 51 and temps that would fry an alien to a crisp. And, before we head out, we wanted to say goodbye to one of our dad’s favorite crooners, Tony Bennett. The golden-voiced Bennett died today in New York at 96. Until later …