A Grip on Sports: If WSU can put together a win in tonight’s Holiday Bowl, the offseason may just feel different

A GRIP ON SPORTS • Bowl games were once a reward. Hard work, success, a week in the warmth somewhere. These days they seem more like unpaid overtime. And no one loves working unpaid overtime. Not even football fans.

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• Take the poor followers of Syracuse University’s football program. Say they decided to follow their beloved Orange from the snowy confines of up-state New York to San Diego, the land of eternal spring.

They traveled across the nation, paying through the nose for a flight. Had to find a place to stay. Places to eat. Tickets to the game. A great adventure worth every penny, right? After all, Syracuse is coming off a 9-3 regular season. Coming off an upset win over then No. 8 Miami, knocking the Hurricanes out of the College Football Playoff. Coming in with most of its roster intact, including quarterback Kyle McCord. Coming in as a 17-point favorite in most places.

Long trip, sure. But the weather has been sunny, the food spicy and a win is assured. After all, tonight’s Holiday Bowl opponent has none of the above.

But that’s the thing about sports. Even college football, which has become a turnstile one in the past few weeks. Nothing is guaranteed.

What if Levi Eckhaus shows why he was Bryant’s starter for three years before transferring to WSU? What if Nick Edwards, the receivers’ coach, turns out to be a play-calling savant? What if Kyle Thornton decides his last game in a Cougar uniform is the perfect time to do his Will Derting imitation and make 24 tackles?

And what if the 22nd-ranked Orangemen take Washington State way too lightly?

If all that happens, sometime after 8 p.m. Fox will be showing pictures of folks wearing Orange sweatshirts, hands on their heads, elbows out, faces twisted in a “how could this have happened?” look. In other words, the classic surrender cobra stance.

Could it happen? Sure. Weirder things have in bowl games. But let’s be clear. I’m not betting it will. Not even with your money. Heck, if the game is close in the second half, I would consider it a victory of sorts. If there is fourth-quarter chaos? A perfect ending to the work week. At least for those of us who didn’t take out a second mortgage to make the trip.

• Yes, the Holiday Bowl is on top of our what-to-watch-this-weekend list. It edges out No. 14 Gonzaga’s trip to Southern California for Saturday’s matchup with No. 22 UCLA (1 p.m., Fox). A Pauley Pavilion showdown? Nope. The game is in Steve Ballmer’s palace, the Intuit Dome, another monument to NBA excess. And another example of something infecting college hoops: nonconference showdowns at neutral sites.

It really doesn’t matter where the game is when you are planning on watching on TV, does it? But if you were planning on watching both Gonzaga teams play Saturday, the 1 p.m. start, announced a couple weeks ago, is problematic. The women’s first home WCC game of the season starts at the same time (1 p.m., ESPN2) and features one of two new conference foes, Oregon State. The other? Washington State, which hosts Pepperdine an hour earlier. That one is only available via ESPN+, the networks’ steaming service.

That’s the same way you can watch the WSU men play at Portland in their WCC opener (5 p.m.)

• What else is there this weekend? Bowl games, sure, including tonight’s Las Vegas Bowl – there is a longer, advertising-driven name that I don’t want to waste time looking up – pitting transfer-portal decimated USC vs. Texas A&M, also having to deal with many defections (7:30, ESPN).

The best bowl Saturday? A Big 12 matchup, BYU vs. Heisman Trophy winner Travis Hunter. And, oh ya, Colorado. The Alamo Bowl starts at 4:30 p.m. on ABC. Then again, playing a drinking game built around the number of times Bill Belichick is shown during North Carolina’s Fenway Bowl game with UConn would be really fun, except it starts at 8 a.m. on ESPN.

• Save your adult beverages for Saturday night. You’ll want to either celebrate Arizona’s upset win over the Rams (5 p.m., NFL Network) or drown your Seahawk playoff sorrows if L.A. wins. A Cardinals victory means next week’s Seattle trip to Los Angeles will be for the NFC West. A Ram win could clinch that title for L.A.

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WSU: Even if it is sort of cool in San Diego today, we wouldn’t mind being there. Instead, it’s Greg Woods’ work trip. He has a preview of tonight’s game as well as the keys to victory and his pick. In other words, the usual. … The usual transfer-portal pain added a bit of salt to the wound yesterday, when linebacker Buddah Al-Uqdah announced his new school. Washington. Talk about twisting a knife. And, yes, we will say it again. Quit with all the “once a Coug” crud. It was silly before. It is completely outdated now. … Jacob Thorpe channeled some personal experience in his latest column about the Cougars. … Elsewhere in the (current, old and future) Pac-12 and the nation, Jon Wilner makes his bowl picks, covering the next few days. … We agree with this TV column. … Washington State is one of the schools listed as needing a quarterback in 2025. … It seems as if Washington has decided on its replacement for departed defensive coordinator Steve Belichick. … Oregon State has done a good job in the portal this offseason. … Oregon did a great job last offseason. … Colorado is back in a bowl game after a bunch of tough seasons. … Utah actually had some highlights this year? … USC will be using a lot of younger players in the Las Vegas Bowl. … Arizona State’s defense has been stout this season. … Arizona is added to its defense as best it can. … Among the future Pac-12 members in the Mountain West, Boise State’s Ashton Jeanty can still set an NCAA single-season rushing record. But it is an apples to oranges comparison vis-à-vis Barry Sanders’ 1988 record – when postseason games were not included. … Fresno State continues to add local players from the portal.

Gonzaga: How the heck does one put together a nonconference schedule these days? Jim Meehan uses tomorrow’s UCLA game as a jumping-off point for an explanation of how the Zags’ came together. … Mark Few is in the running to be named to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2025. And not just because he was an early instigator of neutral site nonconference matchups. Theo Lawson spent some time delving into the nomination and how those connected to GU feel about it. … UCLA’s Mick Cronin is still looking for a win over the Bulldogs. … The Oregon State women have struggled in the nonconference after losing most of its team following a successful 2023-24 season. Makes the Beavers a perfect match for GU on Saturday, don’t you think?

EWU: Dan Thompson has a football notebook this morning, covering subjects as varied as the number of Eagle players impacted by the NCAA’s eligibility decision on JC participation to where former players in the portal ended up. … Elsewhere in the Big Sky, the Montana State band is trying to get to Texas for the FCS title game. All it needs is $300,000. … Turns out, 2024 was a good year for Northern Arizona athletics. … Sacramento State seems to be riding the momentum of its new football coaching hire.

Idaho: The number of Vandal players following Jason Eck to New Mexico is really impressive. Either way you look at it.

Preps: The biggest holiday basketball tournament in the state of Washington runs today, tomorrow and Monday at West Valley High. Dave Nichols passes along the varsity schedules. … Dave also has a roundup of Thursday’s basketball games.

Seahawks: I would have loved to regale you with my thoughts on how the Hawks played last night. But I can’t. Because I couldn’t watch. Every time I loaded the game on Prime, it would run for a couple minutes and then either freeze up or just kick me off the channel and back to regular TV. I tried over and over. It kept happening. I gave up and watched an old show that streams on Prime. Had no issues at all. It was just the NFL game. It was so odd. Then again, as bad as the two offenses were, I didn’t miss much. My one thought? Why would we want the pain of watching the Seahawks play in the postseason? Of watching the 12s sell their tickets to whatever wild-card team visits Seattle as a seven-point favorite? … There are always grades. And instant impressions. … A late blitz was crucial to the 6-3 win. … The defense stood strong.

Mariners: We decided to link here this Times story on 2024 as the year of coaching change in the state. Why? Not only did the M’s fire Scott Servais, but all the other changes would be lost in the rubble of links in either the WSU or Seahawk sections.

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• I had a funny typo yesterday in this section. Said something about sleeping until after 8 p.m. on Christmas Day. Of course, I meant a.m. I am not a teenaged college student. Until later …