A GRIP ON SPORTS • Thank goodness it’s Friday. This Friday anyway. It’s actually possible to forget the doom and gloom of college football – here’s looking at you Pullman – and turn our sites on something completely different. The 12-team College Football Playoff.
Speaking at his introductory news conference at New Mexico, former Idaho football coach Jason Eck shared a story plenty of up-and-coming coaches – and their spouses – could relate to.
A GRIP ON SPORTS • If you ever have a chance to walk on Wake Forest’s relatively small campus, head over to the athletic complex. And you will understand why Washington State had little chance to compete with the North Carolina school when its athletic director decided on his next football coach.
A GRIP ON SPORTS • Change is hard. For everyone, even that guy at the end of the block who tells you all the time he embraces it. Then puts the same lights up every year for the holidays. But change is also eternal. And it hit hard in Pullman on this Wednesday morning.
A GRIP ON SPORTS • I’m not a conspiracy buff. No grassy knoll. No alien drones. No faked moon landing. Not for me. Except, well, the NCAA’s recent actions concerning name, image and likeness and the transfer portal make it hard not to believe, at the least, backroom machinations have been in play.
A GRIP ON SPORTS • Want to assign blame for the Seahawks’ disappointing 30-13 loss to the visiting Green Bay Packers on Sunday? There are enough culprits out there, including, believe it or not, the cook in our house.
A GRIP ON SPORTS • Where were we? Oh, ya. Wondering about the Zags. Washington State’s injuries. The Heisman Trophy. A rivalry game in the DMV. In other words, all over the place.
A GRIP ON SPORTS • This is not said often enough. NFL Sundays are better when the home team, in our case the Seattle Seahawks, don’t play during the day. That frees us up for seven hours or so of NFL RedZone. Now, if it were just possible – it isn’t – to only move from the Laz-e-Boy when Scott Hanson’s voice disappears off the screen.
A GRIP ON SPORTS • There was ice on the back deck this morning. The sun will set before 4 p.m. It may not show its face at all considering the clouds. Christmas decorations are everywhere. Stockings could include bowl tickets. Which means it is a perfect time to talk about the Mariners’ upcoming season.
Gonzaga right-handed pitcher Payton Graham was named among the top 100 prospects for the 2025 Major League Baseball Draft, the MLB Pipeline announced on Dec. 5.
A GRIP ON SPORTS • It’s transfer portal season, as anyone with access to ESPN knows. And that means everyone who read this column. But what you may not know, what with the overwhelming noise from the gnashing of teeth the past couple days, is the transfer portal is a two-way street. For the schools. For the entrants? Sometimes it leads to nowhere. Or Storrs, Connecticut.
A GRIP ON SPORTS • Might as while clear out some files today. You know, rummage through the cluttered desk, pull out any old folder and see what’s in it.
A GRIP ON SPORTS • The Seattle Seahawks are playing their best football of the season. That’s inarguable. But will it be enough to hold off the explosive Rams? The rejuvenated, for one week at least, 49ers? Not sure. But I am sure of one thing. It will be fun, in the “man-my-stomach-hurts” type of way.
Oregon State caught fire midway through the second half and ran away with a 78-62 win over Idaho in a nonconference game on Saturday at Gill Coliseum in Corvallis.
A GRIP ON SPORTS • There is a winter weather advisory in place for the Inland Northwest this morning. Seems accurate. Even if it’s not actually winter yet. The season, calendar-wise, arrives in a couple weeks. But it’s already here for college football coaches and basketball fans.
A GRIP ON SPORTS • What does the weekend hold? Besides rain, of course. College football’s conference championship games. NFL showdowns. Hoops from New York to Seattle, from Miami to Boise. And here in town.
The Deer Park girls basketball team lost one game last season – in the State 1A championship game. Despite moving up a classification, so far this season the Stags look like they’re on a mission to complete unfinished business.
Earlier this fall, Tyson Degenhart was toiling through a preseason practice at Boise State, struggling to channel the effort, execution and activity level that’s made the Spokane native and Mt. Spokane High product one of the most consistent big men in the country.
Gonzaga women’s cross country coach Jake Stewart was named West Coast Conference Coach of the Year, the league announced on Wednesday. In addition, women’s runner and two-time WCC individual champion Rosina Machu was named the conference’s Runner of the Year for the second-consecutive season.
A GRIP ON SPORTS • Today is about old sayings. The tired-and-true tropes that may have started in another language but come through loud and clear in ours. They always have a spot in sports. Heck, maybe even the leadoff spot.
PULLMAN – Here is a look at all 23 Washington State football signees in the 2025 class, announced on Wednesday’s first day of the early signing period, and how they fit into the team.
A GRIP ON SPORTS • Today is a life-changing day for high school football players around the country. Tuesday night was one for any team outside the SEC and Big Ten hoping those same players may someday get to play for a national title.
Playing a difficult nonconference schedule has become a tradition for the Eastern Washington men’s basketball team, which is off to a 1-7 start this season.
A GRIP ON SPORTS • A trio of interrelated events happened in Pullman on Monday, throwing the immediate future and its close cousin, next season, into a bit of disarray. Welcome to every offseason from now on in college football.
A GRIP ON SPORTS • What a Sunday. Crazy, actually. From one side of New York to the other. Or, to be precise, New Jersey. All of which meant the day’s events fit right in to the rest of the weekend just past. And set us up for a crazy week ahead.
A GRIP ON SPORTS • So much happened yesterday that the inglorious end in Pullman – game and season – seemed like an afterthought. In many ways. That game itself, a 15-14 loss to a Wyoming team that won three times all season? I’ll let others debate its import. There is another number that concerns me: 134,480.
The Idaho men's basketball team used a career night from Kristian Gonzalez to beat UC Riverside 80-68 on Saturday at ICCU Arena in Moscow, Idaho, the Vandals' first win over Division I competition this season.
A GRIP ON SPORTS • The final Saturday of college football’s regular season once was filled with either visions of a bowl game or comeback plans for next year. For fans and coaches alike. Players too. But that has all changed. And no one epitomizes that change more than Washington State sophomore quarterback John Mateer.
A GRIP ON SPORTS • It wasn’t that long ago getting up at zero dark thirty, scraping the ice off the windshield and heading out to Shopko or K-Mart was mandatory for the Friday after Thanksgiving. That is if you wanted an $11 Cabbage Patch doll for your daughter’s Christmas. If not? You did then what you’ll do today. Watch football on TV.
A GRIP ON SPORTS • You don’t have to be fluent in calculus to figure out the formula of Gonzaga’s 86-78 overtime defeat Wednesday, but darn if it doesn’t help. Mainly because when an undefeated third-ranked team loses a game it should have won, there has to be some way of quantifying what went wrong.
A GRIP ON SPORTS • Are you fasting today? Clearing out space for tomorrow’s onslaught? It’s not a good plan. Not with a buffet of basketball available. Oh, you thought I was referring to food? Nope.
A GRIP ON SPORTS • ESPN calls it Feast Week, in a nod to the glutton of Thursday’s holiday that kicks off a season of them. In a sports-TV-watching sense, the conglomerate’s marketing department is right. From here until Cyber Monday, there is too much, too often, to digest it all. Hooray.
A GRIP ON SPORTS • All was lost. The Seahawks were destined to fall. At home. To the NFC West-leading Cardinals. It was ordained when Geno Smith, in a fit of I-can-will-us-to-a-win hubris threw another NFL-leading pick. In the end zone. With a chance to salt the game away. Except one thing. They didn’t lose. Leonard Williams made sure of it.
A GRIP ON SPORTS • It was an unusual Saturday, that’s for sure. But one thing that wasn’t? There were winners and losers. The unusual aspect? A lot more losers, even if the game results, as usual, split 50/50.
A GRIP ON SPORTS • A Pac-12 championship on the line in Corvallis. An MLS showdown in L.A. The most-important football game of the day before noon. And some offseason Mariner thoughts. It’s not your usual Saturday this time of year.
A GRIP ON SPORTS • It’s Friday. Time to look ahead to the weekend. With rain in the forecast for most of it, for many of us that means hunkering down and allow the big rectangle in the TV room to entertain us. Football, basketball, soccer, whatever. What have you got, oh magical box of light?
A GRIP ON SPORTS • Not all presents arrive on your doorstep wrapped in paper and tied with a bow. Some of them float through the ether and land in your home via the magic of television. Want examples? There are a couple available today.
