A Grip on Sports: Sadly, there is no chance of a Snow Bowl in the Apple Cup this year – and it doesn’t have anything to do with it being in Seattle

A GRIP ON SPORTS • We stalled for another 24 hours. Is that enough of a waiting period before we over-analyze, over-think and over-react to the weekend’s football? After all, we didn’t want to be a cliché and do it all Monday. Instead, we begin with a different cliché.

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• Tuesdays are for tacos, sure. Tamales, if you can get good ones. Any alliterative food. And, in our case, showing our ignorance. At least this one is.

• It’s Apple Cup Week. Don’t forget to shovel the snow off your driveway. Don’t want your buddies tracking the stuff into the TV room before the watch party. Wait. That’s so 2023. And many, many, many years before that.

But we are in a new era. A new golden (goose) age. A new reality. When the Apple Cup has more potential to be played in searing heat than driving snow. (Not this year, sure, but a September kick, heck an early October one, holds that possibility in future Pullman dates.) Seems an odd time to be playing one of the better rivalry football games in the sport, but what do we know?

Well, we know Washington will be a tough nut to crack – even if the Huskies haven’t faced much competition just yet. Same with Washington State, though we kind of thought Texas Tech would be pretty good. Whether that proves to be true or not, the Cougars batted them around like a cat toy Saturday night.

We feel the lack of competition might be an advantage for UW in one regard. Jedd Fisch probably didn’t need to dig too deep into his bag o’ trickery against Weber State and Eastern Michigan – though he did have to gamble of fourth down deep in Husky territory to jumpstart the offense.

The Cougars, on the other hand, unveiled their most dangerous legs at quarterback since, we guess, Ricky Turner some 40 years ago. But even Turner, he of 1981 Holiday Bowl fame, never had a game in which he ran for the 197 yards first-year starter John Mateer piled up against the Red Raiders a few days ago.

After Mateer connected on 10-of-11 passes in one stretch in the Cougs’ opener the week before vs. Portland State, TTU decided to clog the passing lanes. With space to operate, Mateer just ran the Raiders out of Martin Stadium.

The depth of his running abilities, the play calls, the emphasis, none will be a surprise now. But it also poses a dilemma for UW. What does Fisch and his staff try to take away, Mateer’s legs or the WSU passing attack?

We’ll have to wait until Saturday around 12:30 or so to begin to find out.

And we’ll have to load Peacock to watch, as, in a form of irony considering the last straw in the Pac-12’s breakup was a proposal to outsource to the conference’s TV rights to Apple+, NBC’s streaming service will broadcast the contest from what’s termed a neutral Lumen Field. In Seattle. Less than six miles for UW’s home field.

• We’ll be watching Saturday. And wondering if the issues Peacock had with the Oregon game last week – video drops and audio problems – will crop up again. The broadcast crew in Autzen knew about the glitches, even acknowledged them. That’s a positive. But fixing them, that’s much more important.

Oddly, the streaming service’s NFL broadcasts haven’t had the same issues, which bodes well for Saturday, being held in an NFL stadium.

The best news? No one has to shovel snow before the game.

• It’s weird. All season we’ve assumed the Mariners’ best shot at a postseason berth was through the American League West. The wild card route? It seemed closed what with how well so many teams in the other two division were playing.

But here it is, the final stretch of the season, and the M’s are closer to the final wild card spot than the Astros.

Neither path will be easy, what with only 18 games left and Seattle facing deficits in both. The gap with Houston? Four-and-a-half games going into tonight’s homestand opener with the surging Padres.

The wild card race is a different animal. The M’s prey includes Tigers, Red Sox, Royals and Twins. Seattle is tied with the first three, all three games back of the fourth. Simply put, if the M’s play well down the stretch, all they need is the Astros to falter to win the West. (And they still have three games in Houston.) To earn a wild card spot, all four teams, none of which are on the schedule, have to stumble. Or at least all have to post a worse record than the Mariners. The odds on that? Not good.

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WSU: We had our first Apple Cup thoughts for a simple reason. Greg Woods has his first look at the game today in the S-R. … Greg also has some good news on the injury front, a rarity in Apple Cups over the years. Of course, those games were much later in the season. … Jon Wilner tells us the Pac-12 is rooting for chaos elsewhere in the realignment ecosystem, making more paths to power status available. … Elsewhere in the (new and old) Pac-12, the Mountain West and the nation, Wilner has his weekly playoff musings in the Mercury News. … John Canzano kicks off the week with his usual mailbag. He focuses on the Civil War, of course, but also has some thoughts on the Apple Cup. He also looks forward to next year’s football schedule, something the conference is putting together as we write. It has been complicated by, according to Canzano, the Mountain West not allowing its members to schedule nonconference games after the first four weeks of the season. … Oregon State may be an underdog Saturday in Corvallis but no one should argue that Trent Bray’s team has looked materially weaker than Dan Lanning’s. At least through the first couple weeks. … The Beavers did a lot of good things Saturday night at San Diego State. … Oregon’s struggles make folks wonder where it stands in the Big Ten hierarchy. … Fisch talked with the media yesterday and the Washington coach did address the rivalry game and its place in the Huskies’ schedule this year. … Cam Rising was playing well last week for Utah. Until he hurt his hand. … In the Mountain West, should Boise State be ranked? … Wyoming welcomes in a former conference foe, and rival, this week in BYU. … Hawaii has had trouble recently away from the Islands. Can it turn that around this week at Sam Houston? … Did Utah State learn anything from the loss to USC it can apply to the showdown with Utah? … New Mexico has a date in SEC territory. It plays Auburn this week. … UNLV has one in Big 12 country. It plays Kansas. … Colorado State knows it faces a challenge when it hosts Colorado on Saturday. It also hopes to have a key player available. … There was some acrimony last season in Boulder. … Big Ten fans are looking forward to playing UCLA in the Rose Bowl. … A pass catcher has made a connection with USC quarterback Miller Moss. … Arizona State faces the additional challenge of a Thursday night road game this week. … Arizona may be missing a player this week. … In basketball news, the Oregon women have solidified their nonconference schedule. It’s an important season for Kelly Graves and the Ducks. … Finally, ESPN has an oversized importance in the world of college athletics. Any story about the network’s future is important to all of us who watch sports on TV. The Washington Post has a long one on the company and its future today.

Gonzaga: We don’t know why Mark Few talking about Brian Michelson as his designated successor seems to be making the rounds this morning. That’s been clear a while.

Idaho: The Vandals have been successful on the field thus far. The training room? Not as much. Peter Harriman shares the news UI may have to go with its third-string quarterback in Saturday’s home rematch with Albany. Jack Wagner, himself subbing for injured Jack Layne, had to yield to Nick Josifek last week after getting hurt. Wagner may or may not be able to play. … Elsewhere in the Big Sky, seniors play a huge role for every football program. Montana is no exception. … Montana State has its first bye this week. … Just how did Weber State turn around its game with Portland State? … And how did Sacramento State lose against Fresno State?

Indians: The Northwest League championship series starts tonight in Vancouver. Spokane has two games north of the border, then at least one at Gonzaga in the best-of-five series. Dave Nichols put together an in-depth preview of the series. … Jim Price did the same but he covers the Indians’ playoff history in all levels of professional play. The franchise can boast of 19 titles.

Seahawks: It’s a season of firsts for first-year head coach Mike Macdonald. He held his first Monday press conference following his first win, the 26-20 home comeback against Denver. … Did the Hawks find a workable offensive line unit after halftime? And is Stone Forsyth’s play at right tackle a big part of that? … The main topic of conversation among the NFL’s players and management after the first weekend wasn’t the Chiefs’ win or Tom Brady’s color debut or even the new kickoff rules. It was a traffic stop. 

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• It’s not often we get to write our column in the morning looking out over a golf course. The sun rising over mountains not too far off. The dew on the grass. The tracks of some bird visible on the closest green. All this in the middle of an urban area. It should have made us wax much more lyrically. Instead, all it did was induce some painful thoughts about our lost golf game. Why is it, when we finally have time to play, our body can’t hold up to the rigor needed to groove our swing? Golf was always supposed to be a big part of our retirement. Seems as if the old saying is true. The best way to see the big man upstairs laugh is to make plans. And he is certainly laughing at my golf game these days. Until later …