Very Entertaining Saturday

I certainly hope you had a great weekend, especially if your favorite college team won on Saturday. Since it is finally fall with a chill in the air it does feel like football weather. For a recap of the games on Saturday that involved what we consider local teams: Washington State defeated Oregon State in the Pac 2 championship game on national TV; Idaho stopped a very good Sacramento State team in its tracks; Washington dominated California and Eastern Washington beat Cal Davis on the road with a blocked field goal to secure a conference victory. There was another significant score from the northwest as Oregon toyed with Colorado winning 42-6 after leading 35-0 at the half.

Each of these games had significance mainly because it was the first game in conference play where victories and losses matter. WSU and OSU were able to show that their team was worthy of national recognition and that just because the other ten teams left for greener pastures as in the money is greener, it doesn’t mean those that left are better athletic programs than the two remaining Pac teams. And what Stanford, California, Arizona and Arizona State have shown in the first few weeks the main reason they were asked may be because of weather conditions throughout the year.

The WSU-OSU game was highly entertaining to say the least. The teams played at a high level and the game came down to a recovered onside kick which could have easily been recovered by the Beavers making for an interesting finish.

WSU has a Bye this week giving them a much needed rest period. Oregon State has the Utah Utes traveling to Corvallis which will not be an easy game for either team.

Idaho will be travelling to Cheney on Saturday to take on the Eagles of EWU. The Vandals held off Sac State in the Kibbie Dome and Eastern dropped UC Davis 27-24. I’m looking forward to this match up at Roos Field. It should be a real battle like always and worth the price of admission with young QBs leading their schools. It should be a fun day. Home or away every victory is cherished.

The Washington Huskies throttled Cal in Seattle on Saturday night scoring 59 points. It seems that the Huskies are scoring at will and their QB is putting up huge numbers. Most teams have an issue with playing on Saturday night but their fans are happy with the metro bus taking them back to the Park and Ride. It’s not like you have to slow down for traffic in Colfax or avoid deer on Highway 26. Next up for the Huskies will be a night game in Tucson against the Arizona Wildcats.

For the first three weeks of the season it seems that all eyes in the football world have been on Coach Deion Sanders and his Colorado Buffalos. The talk going back and forth has been interesting to say the least. Some of you know the story when Sanders was hired by the Buffaloes to take over a 1-11 program that has struggled for several years now. When Sanders got to Boulder he told a fair amount of players that they needed to find another team to play for because they weren’t going to fit in his program. He was going to bring in new blood that better fit his scheme.

I know a lot of people were kind of appalled by this move but he basically saw that if he has players that were on a 1-11 team he needed to change talent and attitude. Now with the transfer portal this can be easily done. If any player had to sit out a year then that would make things more difficult and would also make things difficult for the players transferring out of Colorado. I must say that the hype coming out of Boulder has bothered some coaches so they have made each game personal against Sanders. What Deion Sanders has accomplished going 3-1 at this stage of the season has brought a focus on Boulder, Colorado and the Buffaloes’ football team. Sanders will take the heat and his players will play. You can’t turn a team that went 1-11 into a national championship team overnight or even in four games. It took the Oregon Ducks a fair amount of time even with flashy uniforms and Phil Knight’s money. The Duck-Buffalo rivalry came to an end on Saturday afternoon with the Buffs going to the Big 12 and the Ducks going to the Big 10 and that’s too bad.

— Dale Anderson is a sports columnist from Ritzville. To contact him, email [email protected].