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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

A Grip on Sports: Now that college football season is over and the preseason favorite has become the champion, it’s time to think about other things

A GRIP ON SPORTS • The college football season is over. After five months of discussion, argument and, yes, games, a champion has been crowned. Funny thing. It was the team everyone expected to win back in August, though Ohio State’s $20-million road to the title was marred by a couple potholes.

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• And yet, the Buckeyes’ 34-23 title game win Monday night was not unexpected. After all, when a college football team is willing to spend more on filling holes in its roster than our regional Major League Baseball franchise, it should win.

Or is that outdated thinking?

Probably. We are in a new order, one in which the old rules don’t apply. Except one. The big schools, the blue bloods, the legacies, they have a leg up when the season begins and a couple when it ends. Money talks. Players walk. And they walk toward the places with the largest NIL accounts. Everyone else in FBS football is playing for what Boise State has been playing for the past few decades – a chance to compete on the national stage.

That’s OK. It’s been that way since John Heisman and Bud Wilkinson and Woody Hayes were around. It will be that way even when Chip Kelly IV is head coach at Alabama. All those of us who are observers, all those of you who have allegiances to a non-blue-blooded school, all anyone can do is hope the last games of the season, the games of the newest iteration of a championship invitational, are fun to watch.

Worth the 7-minute break between scoring plays and the next snap from scrimmage – I timed it twice last night. Worth having to listen to ESPN’s “Aren’t we the best?” drivel for hours on end. Worth investing five months of Saturdays in front of the TV for one of a handful of schools to emerge on top.

The first 12-team playoff was worth it – if you don’t bring up the first weekend, with four blowouts. Or the iffy calls that doomed a couple teams. Or all the blather about disrespect that came out of the SEC.

• Let’s move on. College football is over. The NFL is at the Final Four stage. There is ice and snow and crud throughout the gulf coast. A perfect time to be thinking about baseball.

At some point a grandkid is going to ask you where you were when you heard Ichiro Suzuki was announced as a unanimous choice for baseball’s Hall of Fame. Well, they will if you can get them to put down their AI-controlled, virtual-reality cell phone/quantum computer and talk with you.

If I ever get that question, I’m going to lie.

Hey, I didn’t know the announcement was scheduled for 3 p.m. (PST) today. I forgot to check the AI-controlled, virtual-reality cell phone/quantum computer in my pocket. I scheduled a service on my car for the same time.

Yep, I’ll have to rely on the downtown cell coverage. And hope I haven’t fallen asleep in the waiting room when the announcement comes down from on high.

Will Ichiro really be a unanimous choice, the first position player so honored? My guess is some ancient xenophobic worshipper of Babe Ruth or Ken Griffey Jr. or the like will hide behind the anonymity of the ballot and leave him off. Mainly because not everyone voted for Hank Aaron in 1982 or Ty Cobb in 1936. There is nothing like tradition, is there?

• Speaking of tradition, it seems Mark Few’s Gonzaga Bulldogs are trying to start a new one. You know, a tradition in which the lose a West Coast Conference game to Santa Clara and then drop out of the polls because of it. Happened last season. This week. Next year? It’s possible.

But that’s it. After that, the Bulldogs will leave the WCC behind, join the rebuilt Pac-12 and have to settle for losing to Fresno State before falling out of the polls.

Of course, there are other traditions this team is trying to keep alive. The 27 consecutive years the Zags have played in the WCC Tournament title game. The string of NCAA appearances dating back to 1999. The run of nine Sweet Sixteen appearances. All of it in danger if this group doesn’t figure out how to get stops.

• While checking the streaks in the paragraph above – they are wild enough to double check – I fell into a Web rabbit hole. At the bottom of it was Marquise Carter and the 2010-11 Zag team.

It was a season that had slipped my mind. Not just because it was so long ago, but because it was, for the most part, forgettable. Other than Carter’s performance down the stretch and Jimmer Fredette’s in the NCAA tournament. Could there be a Marquise Carter on this year’s roster?

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WSU: Around the (current, old and future) Pac-12 and the nation, we have a lot of stories to pass along from the CFP title game, most of them about Ohio State but some that praise Notre Dame’s rally as well. Chip Kelly? The best of the coverage of his renaissance comes from John Canzano. … Canzano also answered some questions yesterday. … In the Mercury News, Jon Wilner tells us his final A.P. football ballot for the year. … We have the ballot of the Oregonian’s Bill Oram to pass along as well. … Arizona State may just be one of the top storylines next season. … The odds are out concerning 2025 but it’s still too early to tell, isn’t it? … In basketball news, Washington and the No. 15 Oregon men meet tonight in Eugene. It is the last game in tough stretch for the Huskies. … Oregon State has rebuilt the homecourt advantage Gill Coliseum used to have years ago.

Gonzaga: The Zags fall from the polls’ grace is news, sure, but not as big as it was last season after 143 consecutive weeks being ranked. Still, it is important enough that Jim Meehan has this story. … Wilner dropped the Zag men to third in his weekly Best of the West ratings. … Win or lose (twice), Jim teams with Richard Fox for the weekly Zags Basketball Insiders Podcast. You can listen to this week’s installment here.

Idaho: The Vandal men were on the road last night, with a chance to avenge a recent home loss to Montana. They couldn’t, however, falling 72-67 in Missoula. … The women did win, in Moscow, to sweep the season series.

EWU: The Eagle men were on also the road for a rare Monday night conference game. They lost 74-64 in Bozeman to the Bobcats, a team Eastern topped in Cheney. … The Montana State women remained undefeated in conference play but the Eagles had a last shot to send the game into overtime. It did not fall and they did. … The Cooper Kupp era in Los Angeles seems to be over. The veteran Ram receiver is unsure of his future with the only NFL team he has ever played for, but is sure he will be playing somewhere next season.

Seahawks: The pass rush is still a work in progress. … Getting it right will be part of a crucial offseason for John Schneider. … Did rookie Byron Murphy II meet expectations?

Kraken: Seattle has turned something of a corner, having won three of its last four games. The latest? A 6-4 comeback win at home over Buffalo.

Mariners: Yes, we find out today at 3 p.m. if Ichiro is a unanimous choice – he’s in for sure – and whether Felix Hernandez stays on the ballot. To get you ready, we offer this story of Ichiro’s 10-best plays in a Mariner uniform. … Everyone should compete to win as hard as the Dodgers do.

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• A quick update. Finally found online maps of the homes lost in the Eaton Fire, the one that roared through my hometown of Sierra Madre, Calif. The old homestead survived. But many did not, including those of friends. The weirdest thing about a fire carried through an urban area by such high winds? Not the damage near the mountain wilderness, dozens of homes destroyed as the fire raced across the foothills. No. It is the clusters of homes blocks away from the brush-covered areas that burned, and the hundreds of homes between those lost and the majority of damage. It’s as if the fire just flew over houses and then decided to land in random spots, destroying a handful of homes here and there. Until later …