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Aug. 31—It’s still 90 degrees in Pullman, but students have returned to campus and Cougs near and far are making their way to the wheatfields to see the 2024 Washington State football team with their own eyes.
The Cougars begin their season in this new world of college football against the Portland State Vikings at noon today at Gesa Field. The game will be televised on The CW.
Fans have heard plenty of speculation about the state of the sport. They’ve heard that it’s a new era with room at the top only for certain schools in the “Power Four” conferences and that more schools may soon join WSU and Oregon State on the outside looking in as college football realigns between the haves and the have-nots.
Big picture
The 10 schools that left the Pac-12 kick off this season as members of the Big Ten, Big 12 or ACC while the Cougs and Beavs repaint the Pac-12 Conference logo on their fields and wear it proudly on their chests as the only two schools remaining in the over century-old conference.
Cougar fans have heard a lot over the past 10 months since Washington kicker Grady Gross’ kick sailed squarely through the Husky Stadium uprights, securing the Huskies an undefeated regular season and all but ending the Cougars’ campaign four points shy of a bowl game.
Today will be the first chance to see what the 2024 Cougs are made of and to get an idea of how far coach Jake Dickert’s team can go in his third full year at the helm.
“We’re not licking our wounds, we’re licking our chops,” Dickert said in July at the Pac-12’s media cocktail hour in Las Vegas — a modest event in a hotel conference room, blocks away from the Big 12’s 16-school extravaganza at Allegiant Stadium, the home of the NFL’s Las Vegas Raiders.
While no power conference appeared eager to add WSU and OSU, the two schools in the northwest corner of the country have…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/wsu-kick-off-pac-2-121500471.html
Author : Lewiston Tribune, Idaho
Publish date : 2024-08-31 12:15:00
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