A Grip on Sports: From trying to catch as many college football games as possible to watching a rookie quarterback try to impress, it is a pretty loaded Saturday

A GRIP ON SPORTS • A few things come to mind this morning. The M’s won. The Seahawks will play rookie quarterback Jalen Milroe today, supposedly for every offensive snap. The Cougars are a week away from the start of their last football season in a two-team conference. And there is a lot associated with those nuggets.

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• What is it we said yesterday? Momentum is tomorrow’s starting pitcher? Yes, we were stealing Earl Weaver’s Tweet from back in the day – sort of ­– and yes, tomorrow is now yesterday.

If we haven’t bent your mind worse than one of Star Trek’s time-travel-paradox episodes, then you understood our main point: Bryan Woo is really good.

Woo went seven innings Friday night. Gave up one hit, a solo home run to Brent Rooker in the first. Walked a couple. Struck out seven. Lowered his earned run average to 2.94. Won his 11th game.

And extended his record streak of at least six innings in every start of a season to 25.

Good thing Andres Muñoz was able to break the A’s momentum, something he helped start, in the top of the ninth and hold on for a 3-2 win – and his 30th save of the season. Why? Because the Astros won in Baltimore to keep its two-game lead in the A.L. West.

• The future is also in play today, what with Seahawks’ coach Mike Macdonald saying this about Milroe on Friday “He’s going to play the whole game. It’s going to be awesome.”

Will it? When Seattle plucked Milroe from Alabama in the draft’s third round, there was some speculation among the 12s about his chance to unseat expensive free agent signee Sam Darnold. That’s not happening.

But will happen, if Milroe plays well this afternoon (1, Fox 28), is those who always want quarterback change when the schedule turns rough and the offense struggles may have ammunition for their online blasts. They’ll conveniently forget Milroe’s star shined in the third of three exhibition games. And it came against Green Bay’s backups as well.

Enjoy the game if it’s how you want to spend your Saturday afternoon. That’s fine. But don’t be fooled by the results.

• The Pac-2 is on its last lap. Washington State and Oregon State’s 800-meter sprint is about to hear the ringing bell. This time next year, the Conference of Champions, football edition, will debut in its new form.

But that’s for then. Now? Only one school that will be playing under the Pac-12’s mantle then will be in action today. Fresno State opens its final season as a member of the Mountain West in Kansas, facing the Jayhawks and their outstanding quarterback Jalon Daniels. The game is scheduled for a 3:30 p.m. start on Fox, but with the Spokane affiliate carrying the Seahawks, that might be wishful thinking in these parts. There is little chance the Hawks and Packers will finish in a 2-hour, 30-minute window.

• TV issues are always with us, aren’t they? They were at the core of the Pac-12’s breakup. They are key to the new iteration’s survival. And the options change so quickly as to be mind-boggling. And finger challenging.

It used to be so easy to just fly around the cable guide with your remote, clicking a college football game here, a baseball game there, a golf tourney in-between. Lining them up in such a way you could check in during commercials or lulls, find out what was up and flip on back.

Those days are leaving us, what with streaming and its convoluted, time-consuming, ugly interface between services. It’s time for some football fan coder – those exist in some dimension, right? – to put together a smart TV app that switches us from Paramount+ to Peacock to Hulu to YouTube to ESPN+ and back again in a blink of an eye. And to have it ready for download to my Smart TV by next Thursday.

Anyone on that?

• Speaking of on that, John Canzano has been such concerning the Pac-12’s two-year trek to become one of college football’s star conferences again. He’s been on that as well as anyone, including his podcast partner Jon Wilner.

It was Canzano who confirmed the conference’s media affiliation with The CW Network for the first five years of the rebuild, joining CBS as the two confirmed networks ready to bring the games into our living room.

Well, most living rooms. The CW purports to cover 100% of the country, which sounds great but isn’t exactly true. And isn’t exactly true in a different way than, say, CBS or NBC or Fox aren’t available everywhere. There are still pockets of rural America – include, it seems, parts of North Idaho – that are outside the reach of the local affiliates the old-fashioned way, through over-the-air without a price tag besides an antenna.

For some, that’s the only option, even a quarter of the way through the 21st Century. Heck, it’s even true for some folks who don’t want to have to subscriber to a satellite or cable service or a dozen or more streaming ones.

(As an aside, the Washington Post has a great guide today on which streaming service offers what this season.)

The CW isn’t as ubiquitous as the Big Four, CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox.

In a city like Spokane, a channel is devoted to CW programming. KSKN runs it all day, every day. But in other parts of the country, the CW is shared on a local channel.

We discovered this truth while visiting relatives in San Luis Obispo last football season. In that not-so-small community on California’s central coast, the CW shares its broadcast windows with the NBA affiliate. And CW shows are hit and miss. Including that Saturday’s Washington State football game, preempted for some NBC infomercial. So instead of watching via our relative’s Spectrum cable account, we had to shuffle down to the local Buffalo Wild Wings and entice the server with a better tip if they put the game on a nearby screen.

Yes, older folks’ first-world problems. But for any Pac-12 fans who live in the area served by San Luis Obispo-based TV stations, the idea the CW reaches them is not exactly true. At least 100% of the time.

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WSU: The Times’ Scott Hanson has a couple of Cougar-based stories in today’s paper, including this piece on their newest running back, Angel Johnson. … He also delves into the rebuilt women’s basketball roster. … Elsewhere in the (current, old and future) Pac-12 and the nation, as we mentioned above, the only future Pac-12 football school in play today is Fresno State. The Bulldogs are coming off a down season, have hired a new coach – former USC assistant Matt Ertz – and are traveling to the Midwest for a big payday. … The only former Pac-12 school in play today is Stanford. The Cardinal are coming off a down season, have hired a new football general manager – former Cardinal and NFL quarterback Andrew Luck, who has installed former NFL coach Frank Reich as the interim head man – and are traveling across the water to Hawaii. Kick is at 4:30 p.m. on CBS. … We covered the SEC’s decision to add a ninth conference football game next season yesterday. Wilner has his thoughts on the impact of the change, one that might have ripples for other conferences, especially the Big 12. … He also passes along in the Mercury News the weekly recruiting summary as well as answering questions in his weekly mailbag. … Canzano has a great column today that we completely agree with. And we also lived through the same circumstances with players from our youth. … Is college football, by definition, a cartel? George Will invokes a word most-commonly associated with drug lords in an opinion piece today. … We linked this look at Washington’s defensive depth chart yesterday when it ran in the Times. We do it again on the S-R site. And add this link to the Times’ story on the offensive depth chart today. … Christian Caple passes along some things about the Huskies he knows and some he doesn’t. … Like a lot of positions, Oregon will be using a new punt returner this season. … Colorado is hoping its defense will continue to improve. … Speaking of defense, here is Utah’s projected depth chart. … A Colorado State tight end almost quit the game. Now he’s expected to star. … Utah State’s tight ends have a new coach. … Arizona State may have the best quarterback on this side of the Rockies in Sam Leavitt. … Can Arizona break even this season? It might take a great year from quarterback Noah Fifta. … In basketball news, their recent Australia trip was a big help for the Colorado men.

Gonzaga: CBS Sports rates center Graham Ike as the fourth best at his position – what the story terms a “true 5” – in the nation. He’s the only Zag on the website’s list of the top five at any position. Braden Huff is 10th in the “small ball big” category while Grand Canyon transfer Tyon Grant-Foster is listed ninth in the “true wing” category. Former Cougar LeJuan Watts, at Texas Tech, is rated third among “wing handlers.”

EWU and Idaho: Around the (current and future) Big Sky, there is supposed to be a crackdown on faked injuries this season. The conference’s coaches recently shared their thoughts on how it will be enforced. … How good will Montana State’s special teams be this season? … And will the Bobcats be crowned champions for a third consecutive year? … In basketball news, Northern Arizona finished up its nonconference schedule.

Preps: Ryne Sandberg is still being feted in Chicago. There was a memorial service in one of the city’s iconic Catholic churches, with a baseball icon, retired broadcaster Bob Costas, delivering a eulogy. Sandberg, who died from cancer recently at age 65, traveled a long way, and not just geographically, from his days on Spokane’s North Side.

Indians: A 10-run second inning propelled Spokane to a 10-2 victory over Everett on the road Friday.

Mariners: We linked Ryan Divish’s game story above. We do it again here in case you missed it. And add a story from the Bay Area. … The man, the myth, the hope that is relief pitcher Gregory Santos seems to be getting closer to returning to the M’s bullpen in September. … Jorge Polanco may play a big role down the stretch. … We mentioned earlier in the week MLB’s desire to restructure its divisions in the near future. And said the Dodgers and Giants would never be broken up. Then again, it’s Rob Manfred and his minions in charge. So who knows?  

Seahawks: And, yes, we also linked above Bob Condotta’s Times’ story on Milroe’s task today. We do it here as well. … There is more to pass along about the quarterback and the game. … The rookies story we linked yesterday? It is on the S-R site today too.

Storm: Seattle put the clamps on rookie Paige Bueckers and Dallas in a relatively easy 95-60 win in Dallas yesterday.

Sonics: Shawn Kemp was sentenced yesterday for his recent conviction involving a Tacoma Mall shooting. He will spend 30 days tethered to home monitoring. Interesting.  

Horse racing: Secretariat is arguably the greatest Thoroughbred of all time. The greatest Triple Crown champion certainly. And one man rode Big Red to all of those Triple Crown wins in 1973. Ron Turcotte. The jockey died yesterday at age 84.

Golf: We missed most of the Tour Championship yesterday because it began early to avoided forecasted bad weather. When is the PGA Tour going to move the tournament to someplace where the weather is perfect in August? Can we recommend Chambers Bay? It’s Tacoma, for goodness sake. The weather will be great. Today’s third round is on NBC, with the leaders teeing off at noon.

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• Enjoy your Saturday. And the college football. The NFL exhibitions. The Little League games. The Mariners. The sunshine. Yes, there will be sunshine available if you can pull yourself from the TV. Good luck. Until later …