A Grip on Sports: What’s ahead for us sports fans this month? Football, of course, as well as college hoops and a few other treats

A GRIP ON SPORTS • The first day of the month. And a Friday as well. A double “What’s ahead?” day, if ever there was one. If you thought it was all about football and turkey, you would be wrong. But not too wrong.

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• Heck, you are wrong about this weekend. One of our favorite yearly events, horse racing’s Breeders Cup, a series of races featuring the best the sport has to offer, invades Saturday on NBC. From the most beautiful venue the sport has to offer, Del Mar, hard on the California coast.

The event actually kicks off today (1 p.m., USA) with five races for two-year-olds, in sort of a Triple Crown preview. But the big races are reserved for tomorrow. There are a couple races on USA starting at 11 a.m., with NBC taking over at noon. The racing ends at 4:30, when two Big Ten plow horses, Wisconsin and Iowa, furrow their way into the early evening football schedule.

Neither of those schools are receiving poll votes, which pushes the matchup well down our list of games to watch. It’s not even in the top three in its conference. Not with No. 3 Penn State hosting fourth-ranked Ohio State at 9 a.m. (Fox). Or top-ranked Oregon at last year’s national champion, Michigan (12:30 p.m., CBS).

One could argue No. 24 Illinois hosting suddenly hot Minnesota (9 a.m., FS1) is a tier above as well. Not me. Not with its starting time. If I want to skip the showdown in Happy Valley, I would rather watch unranked Arkansas upset No. 19 Ole Miss (ESPN) or Duke do the same to fifth-ranked Miami (ABC). Fingers crossed. I love chaos.

With Washington State on its second – and last – bye of the season (along with Washington and Oregon State), our day is relatively clear. That doesn’t mean the regional slate is empty, however. EWU is hosting Montana State, one of the favorites to win the FCS title, and the game is on SWX (1 p.m.).

The Seahawks host the Rams on Sunday. A 1:25 kickoff on Fox. A 4-4 team – tied atop the NFC West – welcoming in a 3-4 team. Parity. It’s the NFL’s way.

• How about November? What does it hold, besides a 2,500-calorie meal about four weeks down the road?

More college football, sure. WSU will travel to Corvallis for the Pac-12 title game Nov. 23, more than likely carrying a 9-1 record into the 4 p.m. CW matchup. Plan accordingly. And don’t forget the big showdown the week before in Spokane, when Whitworth shoots for its second consecutive Northwest Conference title. The 14th-ranked Pirates host rival Linfield at noon Nov. 16. Going into this week, Whitworth is 7-0. No. 18 Linfield is 6-1, with its only loss at No. 9 Wisconsin-Oshkosh, 28-21, in September. Both are 4-0 in NWC play.

Before all that, however, don’t forget Tuesday is Election Day. As well as the first CFP Bogus Ranking Reveal Day. The show is on ESPN, starting at 4 p.m.

The Seahawks, with a bye Nov. 10, have just three games this month, all against NFC West foes. The highlight (lowlight?) is on Nov. 17, the usual 1:05 p.m. loss in Santa Clara to the 49ers.

The real highlight of the month, for some of us, anyway, comes Monday night. The first official night of college hoop. Just about everyone, male or female, who plays college basketball will be on a court that day.

The local schedule is loaded, what with sixth-ranked Gonzaga hosting No. 8 Baylor at the Arena (8:30 p.m., ESPN2). Washington State begins the David Riley era by hosting Portland State (8 p.m.), part of a Friel Court split doubleheader that includes the women welcoming in Eastern Washington (4 p.m.).

The EWU men, with Dan Monson returning to the Spokane metroplex, are at Colorado while the Idaho men host Northwest University that day.

The Gonzaga women, who host the College of Idaho tonight in an exhibition, don’t begin officially until Tuesday, when Montana crosses the mountains for a game at McCarthey. The final start for the region’s D-I schools comes Wednesday, when the UI women play at BYU.

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WSU: The 2024 basketball season isn’t even officially underway yet and, yet, there is 2025 schedule news to share. For the first time ever, the Cougars will travel to Maui for the Maui Invitational, scheduled for Nov. 24-26 at the Lahaina Civic Center. Greg Woods has that news, as well as the rest of the field. … Elsewhere in the (new and old) Pac-12, the Mountain West and the nation, we shared Jon Wilner’s basketball Best of the West rankings yesterday. They are on the S-R site today. … Wilner takes a look at Pac-12 Enterprises, the conference’s technologically advanced broadcasting arm, and how the entity helped in expansion and could help for years financially. … He also passes along the weekly look at West Coast recruiting. … After six years at Washington, one offensive lineman is stretching his horizons beyond football. … By doing its own schedule for next season, Oregon State saved millions. … Though Michigan isn’t the same team it was last season, Saturday’s game in Ann Arbor will be a test for Oregon. How will the top-ranked Ducks respond? And will Jordan James reach the 1,000-yard rushing mark? … The bye week should help Colorado’s already stingy defense. … Utah is trying to fix its ailing running game – on both sides of the ball. … Stanford has an early wake-up call tomorrow. … Nebraska is UCLA’s challenge this week. … I have to wonder if one USC football player ever showed up at the wrong practice this season. … Arizona State has had its road problems this season. It is at Oklahoma State this week. … Arizona has had its injury problem on defense. They are still there. … In the Mountain West, Nevada hosts a Colorado State team that believes it can win the conference title. And is led by its former coach. … Boise State is the favorite still and that success, along with the Pac-12 move, seems to be paying off. The foe this week? San Diego State. … Wyoming, coming off another tough loss, travels to New Mexico this week. … Fresno State and Hawaii also meet in California. … Army takes a No. 17 ranking into its game with Air Force. … In basketball news, for Oregon State’s Sydney Wiese, there is no place like Corvallis. … It is a big season for the Oregon women and we are not just referring to their new conference. … The Oregon men have some questions.

Gonzaga: There has been a forest of words written in the S-R concerning the strength of the Zags’ nonconference schedule. There are even more today, though Jim Meehan shifts gear a bit and writes about the outstanding players that dot the list, not the teams. … Theo Lawson took some time yesterday to write a second-look at the big exhibition win over Warner Pacific. And by big, we refer to the margin, not the importance. … Theo also passes along more award news, this concerning big man Graham Ike. … Yvonne Ejim was named to the Katrina McClain Award preseason watch list. The award goes to the nation’s top power forward. … We also found another story on Monday’s Arena matchup. … Elsewhere in the WCC, former Santa Clara standout Brandin Podziemski has taken on a larger role since Klay Thompson’s departure from the Warriors.

EWU: The past three years, November has meant Eastern being in the spoiler’s role. No playoffs on the horizon. Just a chance to make life miserable for those headed there. Second-ranked Montana State fits that bill, as the undefeated Bobcats come to Cheney on Saturday. Dan Thompson has more in this preview. … James Hanlon also has a preview of sorts. He explains the why behind the helmets Eastern will wear. It features a Salish phrase that is an outgrowth of EWU’s partnership with the Kalispel Tribe. … Elsewhere in the Big Sky, with four games remaining, Weber State hopes to finish strong. … A Montana receiver is contributing more to the offense this season. … It has been a frustrating season for Sacramento State, which hosts Portland State this week. … Cal Poly has scheduled two games with Stephen  F. Austin. … In basketball news, the Northern Arizona women are the preseason favorite to win the conference.

Whitworth: Ryan Blair plays football with a reminder. A reminder of how brutal and gruesome the game can be. All the Pirate quarterback has to do is look at his right leg. Maybe not even look. Just feel. As Greg Lee shares in this story, the former Mead High quarterback is still dealing with the aftermath of a season-ending injury two years ago.

Preps: A rainy Halloween night ended up treating Lewis and Clark High right, though it took two overtimes for the Tigers to get past visiting Central Valley 35-28. Dave Nichols was at ONE Spokane Stadium for the matchup of two schools headed to the postseason.

Seahawks: The rookie class holds outsized importance in the Hawks’ second-half success. … The Rams were once new linebacker Trent Jones IV’s team. Not that long ago. … There was mixed news Thursday on the injury front. … Geno Smith isn’t happy with his attitude.

Mariners: What does the offseason hold for the M’s? Ryan Divish takes a look.

Kraken: Seattle took the ice in Toronto last night missing some key pieces. It did not work out well. The Kraken lost 4-1.

Sounders: Jordan Morris is dealing with an injury.

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• There is one thing I did not mention in my weekend preview. The extra hour we all receive. Yep, it’s time to fall back. There once was a time when I had to walk around the house and change about a dozen clocks. There are a lot fewer these days. About the same number of clocks under the roof, just more of them communicate with Skynet, so they can cover the changeover without my help. … If you are keeping score at home, we had 26 trick-or-treaters last night. Not bad, but not near the triple digits we used to get when our kids were young. And none of those kids wore cameras on their chest, something I saw for the first time last night. There was a discussion about that in our house. I checked with our robot overlords at Skynet and they assured me it was OK. That’s a relief. Until later …