A Grip on Sports: If you want to know who is going to win today’s Apple Cup, you are at the wrong place thanks to the Big Ten Network and Comcast

A GRIP ON SPORTS • It’s Saturday morning. For many of you that has a special meaning. Head to a college football game today, whether that means Lumen Field or the Pine Bowl. Anywhere in between. For us, it has a special meaning too. Double-duty.

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• We start in Seattle, where the new-look Apple Cup features the newer-look Huskies of the Big Ten against the Cougars of the newest-look of them all, the Pac-12. The question on everyone’s lips: Who is going to win?

Why are you asking us?

We have no clue. We can’t tell you how good Washington is. We haven’t seen them play. Thanks Big Ten. Thanks Big Ten Network. Thanks Fox. Thanks Comcast. And, while we’re handing out thanks like Halloween candy, thanks UW for helping to tear the conference apart.

All the TV crud for the past couple weeks, and today, seems like karma, doesn’t it?

Let’s be honest, though. If and when you find Peacock (kick is scheduled for 12:30 p.m.), get it going and get involved in the game on the Lumen Field turf, whether it is Sept. 14 or Nov. 23 won’t matter. It will be cool in Seattle today. Cloudy. A chance of rain. That will seem right. As will the teams on the field. The Apple Cup has been a November tradition as long as we can remember, sure, but it’s also been a battle between the big, wet, metro-based flagship university vs. it’s chip-on-its-shoulder land grant school from the sparser-populated, and dryer, side.

A physical battle. Ferocity-filled. Lopsided, sure, but the intensity has never been diminished due to it. It just made victory – for WSU – sweeter and losses sourer – for UW – when upsets happened

We expect the same today. The equivalent of a fist-fight on every play. Guys flying around, fans standing and screaming, snow … wait, no. Not that last one. Instead, a great game with state-bragging rights on the line.

• Funny thing about the changes. It added some to the game. Sure, it’s a nonconference game and never again – well, unless Lake Washington freezes over and covers the hell that is the 520 toll bridge – will have a bearing on the Pac-12 football title. But that’s been a rare occurrence anyway. Now we have the schools also carrying their separate conference’s banners. The Big, Bad Midwest Ten. The Cast Out Pac-12. A referendum of sorts on the intelligence of conference realignment.

That change seems to favor the Cougars in a weird way. Washington State has never fielded the deeper roster in this Cup. When it was played in November, the Cougars always seemed to have more injury-caused holes than its big-city cousins. And the Huskies often filled whatever they had with another four-star recruit. The best that a Camaro could buy, even when that wasn’t kosher.

But it’s just two games into the season. Neither team has huge holes to fill, meaning roster depth won’t be playing a major role.

• The region’s two Big Sky schools, Eastern Washington and Idaho, face other FCS schools today in key nonconference matchups.

The Vandals take their 1-1 record – maybe the best loss of any FCS school, a tight battle at Oregon – into a rematch of last year’s playoff defeat against visiting Albany (1 p.m., SWX and ESPN+). The Eagles are on the road at Southeastern Louisiana (4:30 p.m., ESPN+ only), needing a victory to get the sour taste out of their mouth from the Drake loss last week.

• Our dark horse for rout of the day? At the Pine Bowl, where the newest Division III football juggernaut out West, Whitworth, hosts Eastern Oregon at 1 p.m. (no TV, though Bud Nameck has the call on KSBN, 1230 AM).

• Last thoughts before we get to the links? We were contemplating the Pac-12 expansion yesterday as we walked Donut through a nearby park. We came to two conclusions, both of which we found stories echoing this morning.

The first? The conference is already pretty good in hoops. Why not try to entice Gonzaga and Saint Mary’s from the WCC as non-football members? It would be good for them – better NCAA-evaluation-tool value in conference play – and good for the conference – more national recognition.

The other thought? No matter what happens today in the two Northwest rivalry football games, whether WSU prevails or Oregon State upsets ninth-ranked Oregon, it’s been a great week for the Pac-12.

As the Washington Post’s Patrick Stevens put it this morning, “Indeed, both have rivalry games Saturday — Washington State visits Washington for the Apple Cup, and Oregon State plays host to Oregon in the former Civil War — and their immediate future is secure. Win or lose, it’s going to be difficult for anyone to have a better week than the Cougars and Beavers.”

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WSU: We begin with Greg Woods’ preview of this, the oddest of Apple Cups. … He also has his two-minute drill (or timeout, if that’s what the NCAA wants us to call it) and his pick. Spoiler alert. He doesn’t see an upset in the making – and believes the Huskies will cover the current six-point spread. … There is also a preview in the Times as well as Matt Calkins telling all his readers to root for Washington State. We’re guessing that will invoke a few missives to his editor. … The A.P.’s Tim Booth also has a preview of the game. There is one on The Athletic as well. … Elsewhere in the (new and old) Pac-12, the Mountain West and the nation, the addition – or should we, to be fair, write “poaching?” – of the four Mountain West schools still resonates two days later. The Athletic looks at the basketball element while Yahoo examines who should be next. … Meanwhile, the S-R’s Garrett Cabeza tells us the WSU Board of Regents empowered Kirk Schulz to enter into negotiations with the four new conference schools. It was a formality, sure, but worth noting. … We linked Mike Vorel’s column about the rebuild yesterday when it was in the Times. It is on the S-R site now. … The additions have Cal and Stanford’s attention while also causing San Jose State a lot of consternation. … Jon Wilner answers a lot of rebuild-related questions in this week’s version of his mailbag in the Mercury News. … He also passes along the weekly recruiting roundup. … Both John Canzano and Christian Caple have great feature stories on their respective websites. If you subscribe, read them. Canzano’s piece even has a Spokane connection. … No one connected to the Huskies and Cougars are inclined to like the circumstances around this year’s Apple Cup. … Around the West Coast, there was one game of note, with 20th-ranked Arizona at 14th-ranked Kansas State. The Wildcats were boat-raced 31-7 and didn’t look great in the nonconference loss between two of the Big 12 favorites. … We mentioned the Civil War briefly above. We also have a lot of stories to link from Oregon, including thoughts of an upset, how important this game is to the Ducks, whether the rivalry will continue after this season and the strange nature of the game for the Beavers and UO. Some history too. … California has its trap game today. The Bears host San Diego State a week after winning at Auburn and a week before traveling to Florida State. … Colorado knows it must get on track today, when it faces in-state rival Colorado State. … Utah coach Kyle Whittingham is not pleased with his offensive line play yet. … The stakes are high for UCLA today against Indiana. … This is a dark story about the USC tight end. … In the Mountain West, there was one game last night and it resulted in a stunner. UNLV traveled to Kansas, trailed by 11 points in the fourth quarter, rallied, scored on a fourth-down, one-yard run with 1-minute, 51-seconds remaining and hung a 23-20 loss on the Jayhawks. … Wyoming welcomes BYU to Laramie and the Cougars knowing they are in for a dogfight. … Utah State has changed its stance on student tickets once more. … Fresno State is over the moon. …  Hawaii respects Sam Houston State. … New Mexico is at Auburn and is wondering what its future holds.

EWU: If you do decide to dial in the game on ESPN+, Dan Thompson has three things for you to watch. … Elsewhere in the Big Sky, the 12-game schedule of this year and next is a big deal according to the coaches. … Northern Colorado has a couple freshmen who have already played together a long time. … Weber State faces a road challenge today at Lamar. … Cal Poly, looking for its first win, hosts Western Oregon. … Portland State hosts South Dakota this afternoon. …  Neither Sacramento State nor visiting Nicholls State have won this season. But both are still really good.

Idaho: The fourth-ranked Vandals aren’t out to avenge last year’s defeat, according to coach Jason Eck. But we believe that loss will be part of today’s game in some way. Peter Harriman has his picks for what you should watch as the game with 15th-ranked Albany (1-1) progresses.

Whitworth: After opening with a win in Minnesota last weekend, the Pirates moved up to 23rd in the Division III polls. Their NAIA opponent today, the Eastern Oregon Mountaineers, is 0-1 and coming off a season in which they won just two games.

Preps: With Dave Nichols busy (see the next paragraph), Greg Lee covered Friday night’s game of the week, Mead’s 30-16 comeback win over Lewis and Clark at Union Stadium. … Colin Mulvany has a photo gallery as well. … Dave still put together the roundup of the rest of the football games.

Indians: Great pitching will stop …oh heck, forget the cliché. Just remember great pitching always gives you a chance to win. Spokane got both Friday at Gonzaga – Avista is already in the throes of another remodel – to take a 2-1 lead in the Northwest League title series. Dave has the story.

Seahawks: There are many similarities going into Sunday morning’s matchup between visiting Seattle and the new-look New England Patriots. … Despite Kenneth Walker III’s injury, expect the Hawks to run the ball. … The new kickoff rules haven’t changed strategy much.

Mariners: Slim as they are, Seattle still has some hope thanks to Julio Rodriguez’s Friday night heroics. The centerfielder, who already had three hits, blasted a go-ahead three-run home run in the eighth and Andres Munoz closed out the 5-4 win over Texas. … Yes, the Astros won earlier and are still 4.5 games ahead in the West but only 3.5 behind the Twins in the wild-card race. … J.P. Crawford is the M’s nominee for the Roberto Clemente Award.

Sounders: Is Seattle good enough to make a deep run in the playoffs?

Kraken: The youngsters, including Berkly Catton, will be away from camp for a while.

Storm: Seattle and center Eli Magbegor rallied from a 17-point halftime deficit to top Dallas.  

Golf: We spent some of our precious down time Friday doing what former President Barack Obama did: watching the Solheim Cup from Virginia. The U.S. women dominated their European counterparts 6-2 in the first-day’s matches.

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• If you remember, George Kliavkoff’s last Pac-12 TV proposal – and basically his final act – was built around streaming games with Apple. That was the excuse used when UW and Oregon bolted, ensuring the conference’s demise. Neither school wanted to bet on streaming. And yet, here we are, a year later and streaming is ubiquitous throughout the sports world. Huh. Until later …