I know there's been a lot of discussion about Eastern opening its 2008 football season with a pair of play-up "body bag" games against Football Bowl Subdivision schools.

It certainly didn't work out for the Eagles when they did the same thing in 2006 and had their confidence crushed by lopsided losses at Oregon State and West Virginia. But in talking to head coach Beau Baldwin and the players on this year's team, I get the sense they're eager to test themselves against a couple of big-name school again -- and much better prepared to deal with whatever outcomes they encounter.

You can read a short story dealing with that matter that I hope to get in Friday mornings S-R below.

COUGARS

A couple of quick notes for the afternoon, one basketball related. Read on.

COUGARS

Let's get this out of the way up front. I know where I picked the Cougars is going to tick off a majority of you. Before practice started I thought they might finish higher. But that was predicated on WSU staying healthy. The Cougars haven't. I came this close to picking them last, actually, but at the last minute, I started thinking about this senior class' success against UW and made one change. Read on for my Pac-10 preview, which will not be running in the newspaper.

Click the tab below to see the Idaho preseason high school football rankings.

PRAIRIE VOICE: Click here to see football previews for Post Falls, Lakeland and Timberlake. Previews for Coeur d'Alene, Lake City and Sandpoint will be in Saturday's Handle Extra.

Though it is a cliche to call a university in general and an athletic department in particular a family, Eastern Washington comes as close as any to making that a reality.

An important member of that family was Tony Carpine, who passed away recently. Tony supported EWU financially, emotionally and physically. Though he never pulled punches with his opinions, good or bad, his support never wavered and it is people like that who make a place special for student/athletes, coaches, support staff and other fans.

He will be missed.

COUGARS

Washington State's football team is now in game mode. One more practice today, the trip to Seattle and a walk-through at Qwest tomorrow, then game day Saturday. We have some links to help you get into game-mode and, as an added Web-only bonus, for a limited time (call now and we'll through in two extra comments free, you just have to pay $136.73 shipping and handling!), we have some thoughts to go with each one! Read on.

Next-to-last stop on my circuit was the Wildcats, who by the end of last year started or played as many as 10 sophomores and five juniors. Coach Mike McLaughlin has expressed high hopes for this season.

Observations:

You can access an unedited version of the Eastern Washington University football team's preview that will appear in Thursday morning's S-R below.

I will post another update on Thursday, but I spent the rest of my Wednesday evening watching a certain political convention and trying to better inform myself on who will be the next person to lead what - for the time being, at least -- is the most powerful country in the world.

COUGARS

It took a little while after practice to get this post ready, mostly because the entire story was written after the last horn. But it's ready now. What you get is the unedited version of my Brian Danaher feature that will appear in tomorrow's S-R and notes on today's practice, with news of another defection. Read on.

Posted earlier from "Ron, the wise old Eagle"

One of Eastern's very best supporters has died. Tony Carpine, as an Eagle fan, he was one of the greatest one-man-bands! He gave money to individual programs when they had extra needs, plus annually to the EAA, he cooked thousands of meals for students at his restaurant over the years. He cooked for many a fund raiser and golf tournament. He gave so much of his time to so many different Eastern sports programs. He did so much for our individual assistant coaches when they were in need. He leaves a big hole that will take many of us to fill.

God Bless you Tony, your extended Eastern family will miss you. You have touched so many lives.

Please post if you have a Tony story.

We can't find much news today about Eastern Washington's opponent to kick off the 2008 football season, but there is a story on the Texas Tech coach kicking some bad habits that a few Eagle coaches, past and present, as well as reporters might want to read.

For football news, the Lubbock Centennial also has this notebook and The Dallas Morning News has this look at the Red Raiders and a primer for the college football season.

For other news about Eagle opponents, keep reading.

Add another game to Gonzaga's home non-conference slate: Montana State-Billings, under new head coach George Pfeifer, formerly the head coach at Idaho, will bring his team to Spokane on Nov. 15th.

More here, and more on Pfeifer's team here.

MSU-Billings joins Idaho, Portland State and South Carolina Upstate (on March 3) on the home non-conference slate thus far.

COUGARS

It should be raining here in Pullman. Hard. Why? After a dry week of WSU stories, the heavens opened yesterday with news on the Andy Roof front, the end of Dan Rowlands career and, lest we forget, practice in preparation for the a little thing called the' season opener. If you're at work, find a quite place and hunker down. Reading today's links could take all morning.

Trey Gross has informed Eastern Washington University's head men's basketball coach Kirk Earlywine that he will not return to school this fall.

You can read an unedited version of the story on Gross' decision that will appear in Wednesday morning's S-R below.

I attempted to reach Gross late Tuesday night but was unsuccessful. His mother, Loretta Young, did say, however, that her son has told her that his decison to leave Eastern was based on his desire to get back closer to his home in Stockton, Calif.

It seems former Spokane Chiefs goalie Kevin Armstrong, who was traded over the summer to Prince George, is fitting in well with the Cougars.

I've posted a story on the Cougars' overage goalie from the Prince George Citizen's Jim Swanson below.

COUGARS

The Andy Roof story overshadowed the loss of another player Tuesday, offensive lineman Dan Rowlands. Read on for the unedited version of tomorrow's S-R story, along with the news on Rowlands. And after we get through that, I had some thoughts on the process.

Just returned from Eastern’s practice and I sense the Eagles aren’t going to “play it safe,” as far as injuries and the offensive game plan is concerned.

As my GSL journey to football practices continued I watched North Central for an hour. The final impressions at NC were good. I got to University late, but talked with coach Mike Ganey and came back Wednesday morning to watch them practice.

Observations:

Good afternoon,

I'm getting ready to head to Cheney to take in another practice session and find out what I can on the injury front.

Eastern coach Beau Baldwin has said he expects all of his regulars, with the exceptions of Shawn Powell (knee) and Taiwan Jones (broken fibula), to be ready for Saturday's season opener at Texas Tech.

COUGARS • UPDATED: 6:30 P.M.

I first posted this news at noon as an update on this morning's post. I've grabbed the two updates and posted them on the link.

• UPDATE: Dan Rowlands, who started all 12 games last year at right guard and 21 games in his career, has left the team. Rowlands, a fifth-year senior who started fall camp at right tackle, said he injured his right shoulder in the spring, tried to rehabilitate it over the summer, but re-injured it again last week. After talking with WSU's trainers and his parents, Rowland said he felt he was risking permanent damage and decided to end his football career. "I know I'm going to miss it, and I'll always be a Cougar, but I felt this was the best decision," Rowlands said. Wulff said the offensive line would change, with Brian Danaher earning the starting spot at right guard and Micah Hannam moving to tackle, where he started 12 games last season.

Before we fly around the Big Sky, let's keep that interesting thread going on the Eastern Washington schedule.

COUGARS • UPDATED: 12:10 P.M.; 12:50 P.M.

There's a telephone ringing in our apartment complex, and it has been for about the past hour. No one must be home, apparently. But it keeps ringing. Maybe the people in the apartment are already headed to Seattle for Saturday's game. Let's hope they were able to check out the links I've found first.

• UPDATE: Senior defensive tackle Andy Roof was expelled from Washington State by the Student Conduct Board sources told me Tuesday. We'll have more on this after we talk with Paul Wulff, along with some thoughts about the length of time this whole process has taken.

• UPDATE 2: Here's an official statement from Wulff: "I was very disappointed when I heard the decision. Since I arrived on campus Andy has been a great leader for this program, on the field, in the locker room, in the classroom, and done everything we've asked, that we ask of all student-athletes. From where he was a year ago he has changed his life around 180 degrees and as a coaching staff we have seen the positive impact he made on this program."

SHOCK

Here's what Adam Shackleford, Raul Vijil, Rico Ochoa and Tennessee Valley Vipers coach Dean Cokinos had to say after the Spokane Shock lost the Arena Cup championship game in overtime.

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Disappointment.

That's the first word that came out of Raul Vijil's mouth following the Spokane Shock's 56-55 overtime loss to the Tennessee Valley Vipers on Monday night at the Arena in the arenafootball2 league championship game.

No ArenaCup for the Shock (18-2), who had a pretty incredible season despite the loss.

We had several reporters at the game, so there's plenty of reading material. Here's the link to my game story and here's one to John Blanchette's column. Jim Meehan also was at the game and wrote this story.

For more of our coverage on the Shock, you can click on this link and Nick Eaton will be posting a video from the game, so keep checking back.

Any final thoughts on the Shock's 18-2 season?

New Gonzaga Prep football coach Dave McKenna is now on the offensive side of the Bullpups ball, but Monday he couldn’t resist returning to his defensive roots during tackling practice where he was coordinator before becoming head man. This is day five of practice. The players are into two-a-days and padded for contact. I started out at East Valley, then hit the corridor to watch Rogers and Prep.
Observations: