A Grip on Sports: There is no feast today though the day isn’t without at least one key college football game

A GRIP ON SPORTS • Today seems a bit different in Spokane. Not sure why. Maybe it’s the incessant rain. Or the lack of a Cougar game. Could be the election coming up Tuesday or college hoops tipping off Monday. Whatever it is, I feel like a mini-Homer Simpson, stuck in the center part of a doughnut, floating in a void, unable to bite into the mountains of surrounding scrumptiousness.

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• Actually, I blame the late-night snack I scarfed down last night after returning home from watching Gonzaga’s women overpower the College of Idaho in a home exhibition game. Never eat that close to bedtime, folks. It’s not good for the indigestion, waistline or the ability to focus the next morning as you try to fill up a blank computer screen.

Maybe a crumb doughnut would help.

Mainly because today is a crummy day. Rain. Cold. Leaves everywhere. A good college football game on early, sure. But one with little in the way of impact on our area. Ohio State at Penn State? Is there any way both could lose?

Sadly, the answer is no.

But there are some positives available. Even in the darkest hours.

For one thing, tomorrow’s darkest hour will appear earlier on the clock inside your house. Daylight savings ends. The hour borrowed last spring is repaid. No true extra time, though. It was an interest-free loan.

How much interest do you have in today’s football slate? Outside of the fourth-ranked Buckeyes playing at No. 3 Penn State, I mean?

Top-ranked Oregon in Ann Arbor to play Michigan has to hold some interest, right? For the many folks in the Inland Northwest who have a Cougar sweatshirt in their closet, the 12:30 p.m. game probably means rooting for the Wolverines, but understanding an upset may not be in the cards.

The Pac-12’s collapse into four pieces has led to a loss of Western pride, eliminating the need to put a chip-clip on your nose and root for a regional rival when traveling across the country for an intersectional game. When every conference football game, it seems, is an intersectional game, then such nuances of fandom are lost. It will be the same Monday, when we tip off the first college hoops season in this new world order.

Hate it? Love it? Ambivalent? Mainly, after two months of football, our own sensibility is we miss certain aspects.

That regional pride thing is one aspect we miss. I might dislike a certain school – cough, Trojans – but when they traveled out of the West and took down a Midwest school that wears its religious affiliation like a badge – cough, Notre Dame – I always celebrated the triumph of Western civiliza, er, football.

Another aspect missing is the annual griping when a school from the taxing environment of, say, Los Angeles, was forced to make the debilitating road trip up to Pullman in November or December. Well, the occasional time whichever milk-toast Pac-12 commissioner was collecting a paycheck would allow that to happen. The cries about the lack of creature comforts or the bus ride down U.S. 195 or the freezing cold high temperature of, say, 49, warmed our hearts.

Wonder if making a trip to Pullman on Nov. 2 is worse than making one to Lincoln, Nebraska? Or Piscataway, New Jersey? Not sure. If there are cries of anguish or rending of garments, they can’t be heard on the Palouse anymore.

The new reality? Take a four-hour plane flight, stand on a sideline drenched by a cold rain, take your money – less than your conference brethren – and fly home. Sounds like college athletics to me.

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WSU: Hope everyone in the Pullman football offices enjoys their bye week Saturday. Four big games await, starting next week with a visit from Utah State for a late-night kick. Win them all and the Cougars can match their best regular-season mark ever. And then take some time off before whatever bowl game they have earned. Will the success continue? We’ll see. All we know is Washington State has one more season being part of a two-team conference. At least the Cougs have a full schedule in place for the 2025 finale of that weird interlude. The 12th game, at James Madison, was announced Friday. Greg Woods has more in this story. Our main thought: After spending a year decrying how terrible it is to have conference’s flung throughout the U.S., WSU’s home-made 2025 football schedule includes games in Oxford, Mississippi, Charlottesville and Harrisonburg, Virginia, and Denton, Texas. It’s almost as if the Cougars decided if they couldn’t get one of the nation-spanning conferences to offer them a spot, they would just make their own. Oddly, between Sept. 20 (Washington) and Nov. 15 (Louisiana Tech), WSU has one game (Toledo, Oct. 25) in Pullman. … Elsewhere in the (new and old) Pac-12, the Mountain West and the nation, Jon Wilner tries to do the impossible. He tries to convince irrational fans of a school with 723 million uniform combinations his Associated Press poll vote is done rationally. It is. But they’ll never believe it. They are too busy talking about drip and fire and a pick-six from decades ago. … That column is on the S-R site, as is his column on the Pac-12 Enterprises, a column we linked yesterday on the Mercury News site. … The schedule is top-heavy today. The Big Ten has some big games, that’s for sure. And there is chaos in a couple of conferences. … Will Oregon State become bowl eligible? … When Oregon takes the Big House turf, the Ducks may not be sure just who they will face at quarterback. Michigan has been trying to find the right guy and the right approach all season. … Washington hosts USC today – finally, a Pac-12 game. We can pass along what to watch. And Jedd Fisch’s hopes. … Stanford has a 9 a.m. game today at North Carolina State. A conference game. Honestly, it is just plain indefensible. The opposite of the Cardinal offense. … Where is Colorado going to play this bowl season? … Utah has lost another quarterback for the season. … What momentum? … The weather in Stillwater is going to be awful this afternoon. With that in mind, Arizona State and Oklahoma State moved up the starting time for today’s game and will try to finish before it arrives. … Arizona visits Orlando today. Not to visit Disneyworld. To face UCF. … In the Mountain West, Boise State started quickly, then gave the ball to Ashton Jeanty often and rolled past visiting San Diego State 56-24 Friday night. … Fresno State hosts Hawaii today. … New Mexico faces a new quarterback for Wyoming. … Air Force does not have to face Army’s best weapon today. … Nevada takes on Colorado State. … Finally, remember how bad Snapdragon Stadium’s turf was last week? So bad the NWSL will not play there anymore this season. … In basketball news, Washington has been playing women’s basketball for 50 years. … Oregon State picked up an exhibition win and lost a player for the season. … The Oregon women also won their exhibition.

Gonzaga: Exhibition games are a lot about getting video from which to teach. Especially when the roster is new, a common occurrence in basketball these days. The Zag women are a work in progress and it took some work to make progress against the overmatched Yotes. Greg Lee was in McCarthey and has this game story. There are only a couple practices available for Lisa Fortier’s team before it hosts Montana on Tuesday. … Elsewhere in the WCC, we can pass along a look at the Bay Area women’s programs, some of which are in flux.

EWU: Can Eastern force second-ranked Montana State to punt a few times today? Seems like a modest goal. Though it really isn’t, considering the Eagles’ defensive issues and the Bobcats’ high-powered running game. Dan Thompson has what to watch in today’s Big Sky game, which kicks at 1 p.m. in Cheney. … Elsewhere in the Big Sky, Cal Poly plays host to eighth-ranked Montana. … An awful knee injury hasn’t stopped one Northern Colorado from playing the game he loves. … Northern Arizona and Weber State renew their rivalry. … Sacramento State hosts Portland State. … In basketball news, the Idaho State men open their season at Arizona State next week. … Recruiting never stops. Ask Weber State.

Preps: There were a few area football games Friday night that had playoff implication. Colton Clark was at one, Shadle Park’s 28-20 loss to visiting Mead at ONE Spokane Stadium. The loss means the Highlanders miss the 2A playoffs, and Rogers, which ran away from host Deer Park 26-7, won’t. Dave Nichols was at the latter game and has this coverage. … Dave also has a roundup of the other local football action. … Dave has one more story. He shares the news Brynn McGaughy, the state’s best girls player who is headed to Washington next fall, has left Colfax High and is at Central Valley.

Chiefs: Spokane trailed by a goal heading into the third period of Friday night’s home game with Portland. Scored three times, including an empty-netter with less than a minute to go. And won, 4-2.

Seahawks: No DK Metcalf on Sunday. He’s out. The prospects for other players are not as clear-cut. … The run game is awful. On both sides of the ball. … The focus in the trade market should change if the Hawks lost to the Rams, but it probably won’t.

Mariners: The roster shakeup begins, starting with the M’s declining Jorge Polanco’s option for next season. He is a free agent. And Jerry Dipoto has missed on another offensive player. … Just who should Seattle target in the free-agent market? Many folks. But who will they? The less-expensive ones.

Sounders: Stefan Frei is on the verge of a playoff record. Clean sheets are his calling card.

Reign: An international break ends. Seattle returns to the pitch. For one match. At the best team in the NWSL, Orlando. And then the team’s season is over.

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• Just want to give you a heads up. We will be here tomorrow. But our column will not focus much on the local sports scene. It will be more personal in nature. Don’t worry, though. We will link all the great stories in the S-R, from the coverage of Eastern’s football game to whatever else is planned for the last Sunday before college basketball begins. And, no, we haven’t been fired. It’s not for lack of trying, though. Until then …