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A GRIP ON SPORTS • Back-to-back years. Remember the last time the Seahawks missed the playoffs consecutive seasons? Me neither. It was 2009, when Jim Mora was the coach. Ya, I sort of forgot he was ever in charge too.
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• Mora was given one season to turn the Hawks around after Mike Holmgren stepped away. He couldn’t do it. Following a 5-11 season (a one-game improvement from Holmgren’s last season), Mora was fired. Hello Pete Carroll.
Which, one would think, doesn’t bode well for Mike Macdonald.
Except, well, though the Hawks may not be playoff bound, there seems to be a slight upward trend. And they have a chance to prove it with a win Sunday in the home of the NFC West champion Los Angeles Rams.
The Rams backed into that designation yesterday thanks to about the 51st NFL tiebreaker, strength of victory. It broke their way when Washington defeated the Falcons in overtime last night. Los Angeles will host a playoff game in two weeks.
The Hawks? Win or lose Sunday afternoon in L.A., they begin their offseason. The only thing to determine is if they head into 9-8, like last season, or 10-7. Oh, and their draft position.
That last one may be important, but it won’t change much from their current slot, 18th, win or lose. Up three spots, down three spots. That’s about it. Either way, the first pick will be something of a dice roll.
• Speaking of dice rolls, it seems new Washington State football coach Jimmy Rogers may be tossing a couple sevens soon. His quarterback at South Dakota State, Mark Gronowski, entered the transfer portal over the weekend.
The 6-foot-3, 220-pound Gronowski has one year of eligibility remaining and an unmatched resume among quarterbacks in the portal.
– Twice a Walter Payton Award finalist and the winner in 2023, the same season he led the Jackrabbits to the FCS title and a 15-0 season.
– He has thrown for 10,330 yards, including 93 touchdowns (against 20 interceptions) in his four years.
– He has also rushed for 1,767 yards and 37 scores.
And the top line of that resume, at least for WSU fans? He’s played the past two seasons with Rogers as his head coach.
There is another coveted Jackrabbit offensive player in the portal as well, receiver Griffin Wilde. The sophomore caught 12 of Gronowski’s 20 touchdown throws this season and 71 passes overall for 1,154 yards.
• Most Mondays are pretty quiet in the world of sports, Inland Northwest version. Not today.
Washington State’s men play their first-ever West Coast Conference home game. And they play it away from home. The Cougars will face Loyola-Marymount in the Spokane Memorial Arena, starting at 6:30 p.m. The reason for the road home game? Winter break continues, leaving Pullman bereft of students.
The same can be said for Gonzaga and Eastern Washington. Still, the Eastern men host Eastern Oregon on campus at 6, the GU women end a two-game homestand, facing Pepperdine (also at 6), and the Zag men continue the L.A. trip with their WCC opener in Malibu (7, KHQ).
• The Bulldogs’ weekend trip to Los Angeles started with a bit of a hiccup, one that could have been even bigger.
According to multiple reports, the charter plane carrying the Zags landed at LAX on Friday evening and, while taxiing to the terminal, overshot a marker, causing the controller to loudly tell the pilot to stop three times. The plane did, avoiding a possible runway encounter with another plane, a Delta flight taking off for Atlanta.
The FAA is investigating the incident, which was caught on video.
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WSU: Rogers needs to get to Pullman, ASAP, if only to see how many players he can entice to return from the portal. Greg Woods has news about a few more entries and the landing spots for others. … We also can pass along a preview of tonight’s basketball game in Spokane and Matt Calkins’ column on Rogers’ hiring, as it appeared on the S-R website today. … Elsewhere in the (current, old and future) Pac-12 and the nation, the playoffs return Tuesday night with the Fiesta Bowl matching Boise State and Ashton Jeanty against Penn State. … But the CFP semifinal that is drawing the most interest is the Rose Bowl on Wednesday. The rematch between top-seed Oregon and No. 8 Ohio State, possibly the most talented team in the postseason. Who will win? And what about the Peach, between Arizona State and Texas? Or the Sugar, with Notre Dame and Georgia finishing up the New Year’s Day slate? … There are other bowls this week as well. … Speaking of Arizona State, we can pass along a story concerning Lewis and Clark High grad Xavier Guillory. … California running back Jaydn Ott, who spent most of the season dealing with injuries, will return to the Bears for his senior season. … Will Deion Sanders bring back Pat Shurmur as Colorado’s offensive coordinator? … Among the future Pac-12 members in the Mountain West, Fresno State continues to add to its coaching staff. … San Diego State won one and lost one. Transfer portal decisions, we mean. … What will Colorado State look like in 2025? … In basketball news, the Washington men finished their nonconference schedule by hosting the always tough New Jersey Institute of Technology. Hey, at least it wasn’t Cal Tech. Or any of the seven (out of 364) Division I teams ranked below NJIT by Ken Pomeroy. Yes, the Huskies won. By a lot. … Ninth-ranked Oregon did as well, though Weber State is a much-better opponent. … There was a couple of big women’s games in L.A. yesterday. No. 1 UCLA rolled over Nebraska and fourth-ranked USC pulled away in the second half to top No. 23 Michigan.
Gonzaga: As we mentioned, the Zag men are in Malibu tonight. Theo Lawson, who has been in Southern California for a while (probably looking for Dodger 2024 championship gear to fill out his collection), has a preview of their WCC opener as well as the key matchup. … Mark Few spent his summer assisting Steve Kerr with the gold-medal-winning U.S. Olympic team. He spent Friday night visiting with the Warriors coach, and another U.S. assistant, Clippers’ coach Tyrone Lue. Jim Meehan has more in this notebook. … Gonzaga sent out a press release Sunday announcing Domantas Sabonis would be honored Jan. 18 with his jersey ascending into the McCarthey rafters. Jim has that story as well. … There is an interesting story from Florida, where Florida State basketball coach Leonard Hamilton has been sued by six former players, including Jalen Warley, who announced his transfer to Gonzaga in November after a short stint at Virginia. The lawsuit alleges Warley and the others were promised $250,000 in NIL money by Hamilton last season, and it never materialized. The most-interesting tidbit from the lawsuit? The players walked out of a pre-Duke game practice in protest of the missing money.
Idaho: Kaden Ellis had another standout game for Atlanta, even though it wasn’t enough for the Falcons to avoid a loss at Washington. That tidbit leads off Ethan Myers’ weekly look at the NFL performances of players with local ties. … Elsewhere in the Big Sky, Touchdown Tommy Mellott improved his passing this season and that’s a big reason why the Bobcats are undefeated, ranked No.1 and headed to the FCS title game next week.
Seahawks: We linked above Bob Condotta’s story about the end of Seattle’s playoff hopes. Here too. Along with other coverage. … The Hawks were not good enough to make the playoffs. That’s the bottom line.
Kraken: How do you overcome a four-goal deficit in about 5 minutes? Well, in Seattle’s case, it included one player skating like a “man possessed.” … Seattle hosts Utah today.
Mariners: We linked Adam Jude’s story concerning the M’s infield upgrade prospects when it ran in the Times. It ran on the S-R site today. We link it again.
National sports: It’s that time of year. A time of reflection as we say goodbye to 2024. A time to make light of a bunch of bad decisions. And to throw some light on them as well.
•••
• We were a bit surprised to wake up to about an inch of wet, heavy snow on our deck this morning. The poor dog didn’t know what to do at first. When you are small as he is, even an inch is a bit of a conundrum. But he did his best Malamute imitation and made it down the stairs to the backyard. Me, on the other hand, hope it warms up enough this morning so I don’t have to shovel the driveway. I have a goal of making it to 2025 without having to undertake that back-breaking chore. Only a few days to go. C’mon 40 degrees. Until later …
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