They've completely imploded since CLW went down.

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Clickbait title and othing we don’t know.. but the ending is upbeat.

Looks like WSU will be able to upgrade their OL coaching with McGuire leaving for TTU.

After this year gotta go with Kyle. And it is a shame we end up losing him and players because of zero NIL....

They have a huge undergrad school.

Read they had like 3k fans at their mens volleyball game vs. UCLA.

They don't have football....they could....and they could play at SoFi.

Curious if the powers that be are interested in investing in LBSU or "Beach" athletics?

Their baseball team branding is really good...."the dirtbags"...and the team is good.

To me, they seem like a school that could be absolutely do well if they were given the platform.

Some of this has been sort of discussed here, but it's rubber on road time.

First the links. Sorry to violate unwritten rules, but a link from Brand X as well as one from ESPN.



So Shulz, again as discussed before, is basically just trying to get some money out of our P5 status while we have it, using his vote as ransom. Good on him. The Pac-2 deserves some recompense after getting F-ed by the Traitorous 10. C'mon Prez, restore my faith in you.

Next? As I have laboriously and repeatedly opined, The Pac-2's only subsequent option is a reverse merge with the Mountain West. P5, G5, whatever. It is our ONLY sane path forward. As I have documented, almost all of the Mtn West athletics programs turn a breakeven or profit. Yeah we are hamstrung by all of our debt. So fine. Hey Chun, instead of bullshitting, and IMHO opinion lying on your bio about all the money you have raised, how about a formal campaign to erase this debt?

A little story. I used to work at a private university in Washington. If some of you guess who, so be it. We had (they still have) this one big scholarship fundraising dinner every year. And we would broadcast publicly that we raised $XX towards scholarships. In our annual report and everything, along with other blatant lies. Made me sick. I pointed this out to administration, who ignored me. So on this fundraiser, the university did not mention that about 50% of the gross, at least when I was there, was spent on the event itself. Huh. and of the money raised, a tangible chunk went to non-scholarship endowments. So no, we did not raise $1,000,000 for scholarships, we raised something south of $500K. Like Chun's bio. Lies and BS.

Pac-12 officially moving on from commissioner George Kliavkoff​

Jon WilnerFeb. 13, 2024 at 2:12 pm
The Pac-12 has begun the process of separating from commissioner George Kliavkoff, according to a source with knowledge of the situation.

The move has been anticipated since the Pac-12 collapsed on Aug. 4, when five schools bolted for other leagues after Kliavkoff failed to negotiate a satisfactory media rights contract.

Kliavkoff reports to the Pac-12 board of directors, made up of the presidents of the two remaining schools, Washington State’s Kirk Schulz and Oregon State’s Jayathi Murthy.

Under the terms of a court order, Schulz and Murthy are required to notify the 10 departing schools of any board action.

Few details are available at this point, including whatever severance package might be in line for Kliavkoff, who was hired in the spring of 2021.

Less than three years later, the 12-team conference he inherited is down to two members.

The other 10 will join new leagues this summer.

Kliavkoff’s contract is believed to have at least two years remaining with an expected salary of approximately $3.5 million annually, based on data from the Pac-12’s tax filings for the 2022 fiscal year.

According to a mediated settlement between the two remaining schools and the outbound 10, conference liabilities are considered a shared expense. Kliavkoff’s contract seemingly would fit under that category.

The Pac-12 office released the following statement in response to a request for comment:

“The Pac-12 Conference Board has given the departing 10 schools notice of a proposed leadership transition with an invitation to provide comment. We expect to provide more information following a decision in the coming days.”

That “transition” seemingly will include the appointment of a replacement for Kliavkoff.

Teresa Gould, the Pac-12’s deputy commissioner, is well respected by the schools and considered a likely option — not only as an interim commissioner through the spring but perhaps to manage a scaled-down version of the conference for the 2024-25 school year and beyond.

WSU and OSU plan to operate as a two-team conference in football, under the Pac-12 banner, for the next two seasons; their basketball teams and many Olympic sports will be housed in the West Coast Conference.

By the fall of 2026, the ‘Pac-2’ must expand, or the Pac-12 will no longer be recognized as an official conference.

How boring.
Michael Jackson he ain't.

Note: I posted this under the thread..."I'll give Shultz some credit"....in case others missed it.
.

WSU AD Pat Chun named to College Football Playoff selection committee​

Greg WoodsFeb. 8, 2024 at 3:53 pm
By
The Spokesman-Review
PULLMAN — Washington State just gained another seat at the table.

WSU athletic director Pat Chun has been named to the College Football Playoff Selection Committee, the organization announced Thursday, giving the Cougars two positions of power on the committee.

That’s in addition to university president Kirk Schulz, the Pac-12’s representative on the CFP’s management committee, who is currently holding up the vote on a potential change to the playoff format.

At a meeting ahead of last month’s national championship game in Houston, CFP Board of Managers (which includes a university president from each of the 10 FBS conferences and Notre Dame) was ready to move to the 12-team model from a 6+6 format to 5+7, accounting for the Pac-12’s restructuring by replacing one automatic qualifier with an at-large spot.

Schulz, though, isn’t voting in favor of that. For the format change to take place under the current contract — which runs through 2025 — the vote must be unanimous, so Schulz’s holdout is delaying any possible change to the playoff format, according to Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger.

Schulz is trying to keep the 6+6 format (six highest-ranked conference champions and the next six highest-ranked teams) because it guarantees a spot in the playoff for the champion of the Pac-12, which Washington State and Oregon State are trying to rebuild. In the interim, they’re partnering with the Mountain West Conference for a two-year scheduling agreement to provide both schools with games.

The revenue sharing aspect is no doubt important to Schulz, whose school (as a power-conference entity) is expected to receive around $25 million per year as part of the 12-team playoff.

“I think [Schulz] just sitting on his vote trying, at the end of the day, to get a little more money from the CFP,” wrote CBS Sports reporter Dennis Dodd, citing an anonymous source. “He’s not a fire-thrower guy. He’s made it clear that he thinks that he and Oregon State need a little something special.”

Greg Woods Washington State beat writer for The Spokesman-Review

Reports are out that the PAC12 governing board is beginning the process of letting the commissioner go. They have notified the Traitor 10 and asked for comments

I thought his summary was pretty good. Worth reading. You can always quibble a bit over the grades, but this seemed fair. I'm sure it is not the first time we've ever had a better grade on one of these sorts of things than UW, but they are rare. I enjoy them when they happen!

Huge opportunity for another Quad 1 win. Hopefully get a bit more production from Jones and Rice and we stay out of foul trouble. Vegas like the ducks by 3.5. Should be a good game.

This makes a lot of F’ing sense. So the Alamo Bowl is going to be a conference game. CFB is broken.

Easy hire for an AD that plans on jumping ship soon. Promote the reasonably credible assistant with a lot of staff experience. Likely to keep some of the existing assistants. Not a bad guy. Not a home run hire. The least amount of work for Jarmond. What could possibly go wrong?

Leaving UCLA to be OC at tOSU. Crazy

Will WSU break their NCAA tournament drought this year? Here’s a look at the Cougars’ resume​

Greg WoodsJan. 30, 2024 at 3:59 pm
By
The Spokesman-Review
PULLMAN — Kyle Smith isn’t one to ignore the noise. Washington State’s head honcho acknowledges that with every big game his team wins, every Quadrant 1 victory the Cougars secure, they inch closer to breaking a decade-long drought.

WSU hasn’t made the NCAA men’s basketball tournament field since 2008, back when Tony Bennett was the coach and Klay Thompson was still a high school phenom. Many of these current Cougs were toddlers at the time.

Now they’re in charge of helping their program return to the big dance. They’ve put together a nice resume so far. In here, we take a look at how things are shaping up — and what the Cougars need to do to punch their ticket come March.

The good​

Washington State, No. 41 in the NET rankings and No. 45 in KenPom’s rankings as of Tuesday, has earned two Quadrant 1 wins, the most important of their kind: Over Arizona on Jan. 13 and over Colorado on Saturday. Their victory over the Wildcats, ranked No. 3 in the NET, will almost certainly stand as a Quad 1 victory. It will be the brightest spot on WSU’s resume.

WSU’s win over Colorado will also likely stand the test of time. The Buffaloes start a future NBA lottery pick and have a favorable stretch of schedule coming up. Expect the Cougs to keep that win earmarked.

The Cougars (15-6, 6-4 Pac-12) also own a win over Utah, which has recently slid in the NET rankings, prompting the win to drop from Quad 1 to Quad 2. The Utes have a couple tough games coming up — against Arizona and Colorado — but with a few wins in February, they could climb back into the top 30, shuffling the win back to Quad 1.

Back in December, Washington State clipped Boise State in Spokane, which was a Quad 1 victory — until the Broncos tumbled under the No. 50 spot in the NET rankings, which is the neutral-site threshold for a Quad 1 win. The Broncos’ schedule coming up isn’t easy — three of their next four games are against KenPom’s top-41 teams — but it is conceivable that they rise back to No. 50 or better by season’s end.

On Saturday, WSU visits Washington for a 6 p.m. tip-off. Headed into the game, it’s a Quad 1 opportunity for Washington State, because UW stands at No. 75 in the NET rankings. Problem is, that’s the very end of the Quad 1 spectrum, and with a loss, the Huskies would fall in the rankings — and turn WSU’s win into a Quad 2 victory.

The Cougars will have to hope the Huskies can rise back to No. 75 or better by the end of the season.

The bad​

So far, the biggest blight on WSU’s resume is its road loss to Cal on Jan. 20, which at the time was a Quad 3 loss, the second-worst of its kind. In the games since, the Golden Bears have ascended to No. 133 in the NET rankings, improving the Cougs’ loss to Quad 2.

For WSU, that’s the good news in the bad news section. California remains on the edge of the NET No. 135 mark, the threshold for a Quad 3 loss for WSU. The Golden Bears can do the Cougars a favor by continuing to jump up those rankings.

Then there’s the problem of Washington State’s weak strength of schedule. KenPom ranks the Cougars’ nonconference schedule No. 319 nationally, with a figure of -5.96. In their five-game homestand back in late November, four of the teams the Cougs played came in ranked No. 254 or worse.

That helped them race to a nice start, but now they’re feeling the effects. For WSU, making the most of its Pac-12 schedule has become paramount, particularly because from now on, its Quad 1 opportunities become few and far between.

Here is a list of those.

• At No. 75 Washington on Saturday

• At No. 52 Oregon on Feb. 10

• At No. 3 Arizona on Feb. 22

That’s three road games, and we know that even if the Cougs knock off the Huskies this weekend, that win will immediately drop from Quad 1 to Quad 2. Oregon is 10-1 at home this season. Arizona is 10-0 on its home floor. Calling those games tough would be a massive understatement.

That’s why for the Cougars, winning the majority of the rest of their games will become vastly important. They can also boost their resume by winning a game or two at the Pac-12 tournament in Las Vegas in March. With a tougher nonconference schedule, WSU might have been able to avoid such a situation, but here the Cougs are.

Another problem facing the Cougars: Can they remain on the right side of the bubble, particularly with so many Pac-12 teams in similar situations? Colorado and Oregon are fighting for spots like WSU is. Utah might be in the same boat, depending on how the Utes finish out the year.

What are national media saying?​

In the latest update from Joe Lunardi, ESPN’s resident NCAA tournament guru, Washington State made a cameo in the First Four Out category. That means to Lunardi, the Cougs are somewhere in the No. 69-72 range — just outside of the field of 68.

Over at CBS Sports, where Jerry Palm is in charge of the Bracketology, WSU is in the tournament as a No. 11 seed, facing No. 6 FAU. That’s in the East region, where there is no play-in game, so Palm is higher on the Cougs than others.

The Washington Post has WSU pegged on the outside looking in, as one of the last few excluded.

Greg Woods Washington State beat writer for The Spokesman-Review

Quite a character. That's all I have to say about that.

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So living in YakiVegas, I have Pacific Power. I just assumed that most of our electricity comes from Hydro, with some wind and solar mixed in. Uh, well, not so much. Looked at the shit that comes with my bill for the first time, and it included a Power Contents label. Turns out 41% of my power comes from coal! and another 17.5% from natural gas! Only 7.6% from hydro, but at least wind is 15.8%. Now PP has kind oa a checkboard customer base that consists mostly of Oregon. But Coal?

Now Avista, covering most of E. Wash and N. Idaho, is 48% hydro and 9% wind. But still 33% natural gas and 8% coal.

Puget Sound Electric, which encompasses a bunch of the westside, is a little sketchy. Their website say that in 2014 (a decade ago) hydro was over a third. But they also have natural gas and coal from Montana. I do see that Seattle City Light is 86% hydro.

Need to do more research here, but WTH. Coal? Do those all-electric, dam removing granolas know or pay attention to this? Even natural gas does pollute and burn oxygen, right?

I got this info from my pals on the UNLV board. They are more fun than you snoozers.

Guess I need to look up the agreement itself.

Specifically these are the first year costs:
o $2 million to the MWC for administrative fees.
o $9 million to the MWC for the 6 Pac-2 home games. ($1.5 million per home game x 2 schools (OSU and WSU))
o $3 million to the MWC for a General Participation Fee.

If the Pac-2 decides to play a second year the cost will be:
o $9 million to the MWC for the 6 Pac-2 home games.

So my reaction is WTF? As I told my UNLV pals, I am all for the reverse merger, but WhoTF negotiated this for the Pac-2? Quackkoff? $2M in Admin fees? $3M for general participation? Participate in what? No conference championship, for starters. $1.5M in home game payments per game? We could get who into Pullman for $1.5M? Uh, lots of big-name teams. And no away game revenue?

Two years in the NFL, two Super Bowl rings. Good for Jaylen. He also contributed a key fumble recovery last night that was probably the turning point in the game, IMO.

Glad Cougar

I meant to post this a few days ago. But I do get lazy from time to time. Seaside Joe is a Substack site written by Kenneth Arthur about the Seahawks. At one time, he was the editor of Fieldgulls, the Seahawks SBNation site. Arthur is also a Coug.

Anyway, the reason why I am bringing Seaside Joe up is a recent article that he wrote that brings up college coaches.

You would think, “Being an NFL head coach must be harder than being the head coach of a college program” but the opposite appears to be true. NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero made a note of that last week on The Rich Eisen Show, explaining that a team like Boston College (who lost their head coach last week when he signed on to be the Packers defensive coordinator) simply can’t keep up with the rapid increase of recruiting cycles:

First you have to recruit high school players to come to your school, then you have you to recruit them (as in you have to recruit YOUR OWN PLAYERS a second time) every January when the transfer portal opens up, then you have to do it again (a third time) when the transfer portal opens for a second time in the spring…this doesn’t include recruiting players outside of your program and it doesn’t include fighting sponsors and boosters who will pay big bucks for prospects through NIL deals.

If schools like Boston College or Washington State or even to some degree Washington lands a big star, there’s no guarantee it won’t be to springboard to a bigger program for more money.

Are Seahawks only team left without offensive coordinator?

Why Ryan Grubb probably wants to leave Alabama for the NFL: Seaside Joe 1800

www.seasidejoe.com

This is part of the reason why I like college sport a little less every year.

So UO and UCLA are tied for 3rd, one game behind WSU. If Colorado happens to win, they will join them in a 3-way tie for 3rd. We still play UCLA. I don't like this very much. Cougs definitely need to keep winning. Winning the Pac-12 would be fantastic - when is the last time we were champs? 1941? But 2nd would pretty much punch our ticket, regardless of the tournament results, right? Stumble a little and we could be looking at 5th place.

I'm watching. Nothing else going on tonight. Despite their lackluster record, they are still in the mix for the tournament if they can get on a winning streak.

just wanna know?

Anybody want a game thread? Tipoff at 7.

On rankings - are you aware that currently the Pac-12 has one team ranked, Arizona, and the Mtn West has 3? granted they are all in the 20's but still. And our "new" BB conference the WCC? -0-.

WSU has 6 votes in the AP poll. No one else has any.