A Grip on Sports: There are a few files on our desk that are rarely touched and more than a few that are being jammed full these days

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.

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• Here’s one. Two actually. One labeled “Transfer portal entrants.” The other? “Transfer portal recruits.”

Those two are on every college football coach’s desk in America today. Even those playing for the national title. Or a bowl.

The entrants’ one on Jake Dickert’s had 15 files tossed in it Monday. But none of them were labeled “John Mateer.” That’s a good thing. The Cougars’ star quarterback has yet to announce his intentions for 2025. If he stays, the Cougars have a solid foundation from which to anchor an offense.

Up the road, Eastern Washington’s Aaron Best had to slide his starting quarterback’s resume in that file. Kekoa Visperas, with 21 starts in the past two years, is more than likely headed elsewhere to play his final college season.

Across the Cascades, Jedd Fisch has made it clear anyone who wants to transfer is OK in his book. And he’s more than welcome to stick around and play in the Huskies’ Dec. 31 Sun Bowl game.

That’s not the way Arizona State’s Kenny Dillingham looks at it. He said Monday he’s told any player who is thinking about entering the portal they need to decide before ASU preps for its Peach Bowl appearance, a CFP quarterfinal. If they want to go, he stands ready to help them any way he can. But if they stick around for the playoff journey, he expects them to be back next season.

Want to know why there is such a divergence of game plans? Because no coach has a file on their desk labeled “Portal rules.” Or if they do, it has dust an inch-thick on it.

• Jason Eck has too many worries right now to even glance at his portal files. They are, in order, Montana State’s offense, Montana State’s defense, Montana State’s special teams and Montana State’s crowd. Oh, ya. The weather. He must have a file filled with forecasts for Bozeman on Friday night.

In the search for brevity, and to reduce clutter, our desk has just one thick file. On it is the “FCS playoffs” label.

The Vandals’ pursuit of somehow, someway reversing their regular-season 38-7 defeat to the top-seeded Bobcats is in there. And, yes, there are a lot of pages, atop of them the latest X-ray of quarterback Jack Layne’s shoulder. The collarbone break, which forced him to miss the October Bozeman visit, is healed.

That should give any Vandal fan hope.  

• In the “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” file, there is just one resume today. That would be the Dallas Cowboys’.

Thirty-one years ago, on a snowy Thanksgiving in Texas, Leon Lett etched his name in the football pantheon alongside such greats as Roy Riegels, Jim Marshall and that Stanford trombonist.

And if you don’t know who any of them are, better fire up the Google machine. Or stay off the football field.

Which is where any Dallas Cowboy fan wants Amani Oruwariye after what happened last night.

Tie game, Central Valley High graduate Ryan Rehkow on to punt for Cincinnati, two minutes left to play. The Cowboys’ Nick Vigil breaks through, gets his hands on Rehkow’s punt and Jerry Jones’ team watches as it rolls harmlessly near the Bengals’ 40.

Except Oruwariye tries to save the yardage and fall on it. Fails. Live ball. The Bengals recover and go on to win.

Now Oruwariye’s play is nowhere near egregious as Lett’s attempt to fall on a loose ball that everyone on the field had run away from in 1993. Nor is it as colorful as Riegels’ Rose Bowl run to the wrong endzone almost a century ago. Nor Marshall’s, who did the same 60 years ago for the Vikings. Nor as endearing as the Stanford band coming on the field.

But it certainly was a fun way for the Cowboys to lose, a result many of us root for every time we see Jones’ face on our TV. So, a couple times every week.

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WSU: Greg Woods’ story lists all 15 soon-to-be ex-Cougars who have entered their name in the portal. Many of them are backups. But a few key contributors are on their way out of Pullman. … If you want to keep up, Greg has put together a transfer tracker, which currently only has the outgoing names. … Elsewhere in the (current, old and future) Pac-12 and the nation, Jon Wilner has his final Best of the West rankings. Not sure we agree with WSU’s placement, if this one is supposed to be a ranking of the season’s results. If it’s a snapshot of “now,” then fine. The Cougars deserve to be 12th. But overall? Then they should be seventh. … Wilner also has his listing of the region’s best players in the Mercury News. … John Canzano has his weekly mailbag. … Former Seattle Times’ columnist Jerry Brewer has his thoughts on the CFP format in the S-R today. … The Cougars’ Holiday Bowl against Syracuse is just outside the top 10 in this ranking. … The four Heisman finalists all have large Western connections. There are current region players Dillon Gabriel (Oregon), Ashton Jeanty (Boise State) and Travis Hunter (Colorado). And there is former WSU quarterback Cam Ward. … A former UW lineman is set to become a new UW lineman. … Oregon may be the national title favorites after its Big Ten title. The Ducks may have picked up awards or will soon. But they still have their hands and minds on the portal. … Oregon State has lost an offensive lineman to the portal. … California seems to have found its new offensive coordinator. … USC may need to find a new running back. … Utah may need a new quarterback. … Cam Skattebo probably should have been invited to the Heisman ceremony. But Arizona State has to guess the quota of hard-to-tackle running backs had already been filled by Jeanty. … It looks as if Arizona is revamping its roster in a big way. … Among the future Pac-12 members in the Mountain West, Utah State introduced new football coach Bronco Mendenhall on Monday, breaking the bank on Utah news. Mendenhall was once BYU’s coach. Now in Logan? That is news. … Jeanty heading to New York is a big deal for Boise State. … Fresno State is playing in Boise’s Famous Idaho Potato Bowl against Northern Illinois. … In basketball news, the Washington men need to fix some things. … Oregon State has put together some blowout wins. … Oregon fell in the rankings after its last-second home loss to UCLA.  

Gonzaga: Yes, the Zags took a poll hit with their overtime loss to Kentucky. They fell one spot in the A.P. poll, all the way to eighth. Jim Meehan has the story. … Jim also talked with Richard Fox for their Zags Basketball Insiders Podcast, which you can listen to here if you want.

EWU: Besides Visperas, the first official day of the portal saw other Eagles decide to make a change. Dan Thompson delves into them. … Elsewhere in the Big Sky, the rematch with Idaho (see below) has Montana State excited. It is basically a conference game. With huge stakes. … The Bobcats feel they have improved. … Montana has been hit by the portal already. … Sacramento State has been hit by the coaching transfer portal. Andy Thompson is leaving, headed to Stanford as an assistant. … Idaho State is also in the portal spin. … In basketball news, the Northern Arizona women had their winning streak snapped.

Idaho: Peter Harriman has his first preview of Friday night’s quarterfinal in Bozeman. The task seems daunting.

Preps: Mt. Spokane senior Kade Brownell’s second-place finish at the Foot Locker Cross Country Championships’ West Regional on Saturday means he’ll be running Dec. 14 in the national championship race.

Seahawks: What a running game Sunday. A one-off or a harbinger of the season’s stretch drive? … The defense seems to be getting the hang of Mike Macdonald’s defense. … When will Kenneth Walker III return? … The playoffs are out there for the taking.

Mariners: The Mariners seem to be trying to entice 32-year-old starting pitcher Luis Castillo to waive his no-trade clause and accept a trade. And to find someone to send them a decent bat in return. The former will probably cost some money. The latter? Finding the right partner. Nothing seems to be imminent, though. … Their priority in the free agent market? Japanese pitcher Roki Sasaki. … Juan Soto’s 15-year, ¾-of-a-billion-dollar deal – we had a typo yesterday which we fixed thanks to a sharp-eyed reader – is sending shockwaves up and down the I-95 corridor. Everywhere else? Well, the Dodgers don’t care and the rest of the Midwest and West teams aren’t spending that type of money anyway.

Kraken: Shane Wright hit reset. And had a great road trip.

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• It’s way too hard to distinguish between 4:30, 5:30 and 6:30 in the morning these days. Waking up at the first one made it impossible to get back up at the second, resulting in the third coming into play. And a tough morning. A new clock for the bedroom is a Christmas-present priority. One of those memory clocks might be a good thing. Until later …