Appeal Tribune
܂ WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 22, 2018܂ 1B
Sports
COLLEGE FOOTBALL
Huskies lead Pac-12 favorites
Washington
stacked with
NFL-caliber talent
Greg Beacham ASSOCIATED PRESS
LOS ANGELES – Chris Petersen
spent the past half-decade building a
powerhouse at Washington, and his lat-
est group is the strong favorite to win
the Pac-12 title while leading the
league’s quest to regain national re-
spectability.
So why was Petersen so disappointed
when a preseason media poll simply
confirmed what everyone already
knows by anointing the Huskies as the
Pac-12 favorites?
“I like to be on a different team than
you guys are on,” Petersen said to re-
porters at Pac-12 media day. “I’d rather
prove you wrong than to prove you right.
Now we’re working to prove you right
rather than prove you wrong.”
Apparently you can take the coach
out of Boise, but you can’t take the Boise
out of the coach. Petersen just won’t
ditch his underdog worldview, even
with quarterback Jake Browning and
running back Myles Gaskin leading a
Huskies roster stacked deep with NFL-
caliber talent and chasing its second
playoff berth in three years.
But in truth, the entire Pac-12 could
be excused for taking a bit of Petersen’s
mentality into this fall. The league’s rep-
utation is still smarting from its 1-8 rec-
ord in bowl games last winter, followed
by an offseason of heavy coaching turn-
over featuring five schools turning to
new leaders. The Pac-12 returns with its
usual wealth of talent, but uncertainty
at many programs.
Washington has little uncertainty
anywhere, and that’s why Petersen’s
team is the consensus pick to win the
West. The Huskies’ season-opening
showdown with Auburn in Atlanta is a
chance to show the sport that the Pac-12
is back – or it could just be another game
on a long road of redemption.
“I’ve been hearing that a lot, that we
have to represent the Pac-12, but we’re
just going out there looking to beat Au-
burn,” said Washington safety JoJo
McIntosh, one of five returning starters
in the Huskies’ secondary. “Just go out
there and compete, and win, and they’ll
notice you.”
Here are more things to watch in the
eighth season of the conference’s cur-
rent 12-team configuration:
Chip part 2
Chip Kelly led the speed-based revo-
lution in college football and won three
Pac-12 titles during his four-year tenure
as Oregon’s head coach. After two stints
in the NFL and a year as a broadcaster,
Kelly was enticed back to the college
game by UCLA and its deep-pocketed
Washington head coach Chris Petersen, middle, walks on the field during practice Aug. 3 in Seattle. Petersen’s Huskies are
the preseason favorites to win the Pac-12 with their roster full of NFL-caliber talent, but the entire league is looking for an
improved season after going 1-8 in bowl games last winter. ASSOCIATED PRESS
“I like to be on a different team than you guys are on. I’d rather prove you wrong than to
prove you right.”
Chris Petersen, Washington head coach
boosters, who are determined to put the
Bruins on equal footing with crosstown
rival Southern California. Kelly could
start slowly with a mixed bag of talent,
including no standout starting quarter-
back and little experience at receiver. He
isn’t saying much about his plans, natu-
rally. But the entire sport is waiting to
see what Kelly can conjure in West-
wood.
Love on the farm
Heisman Trophy runner-up Bryce
Love defied most predictions and the
conventional wisdom around tailbacks
by returning to Stanford for his senior
season. The human biology major is de-
termined to graduate in December to
protect his dream of going to medical
school, but his return also sets up the
Cardinal for another season of their
punishing ground game with Love run-
ning behind four returning starters on
the offensive line. Stanford also has four
returning receivers for K.J. Costello or
whichever quarterback claims the start-
ing job.
While Washington is the favorite, the
Cardinal are a strong contender in the
Pac-12 North.
Herm’s head
Aside from Kelly’s return, the most
intriguing new hire among the league’s
five new coaches is Herm Edwards. The
veteran NFL boss is also the biggest risk
: Although he enjoyed modest success
with the Jets and Chiefs, Edwards
hasn’t coached anywhere since 2008,
and he hasn’t been a college coach since
his three-year stint as San Jose State’s
defensive backs coach in the 1980s. Ed-
wards’ progress in his new job should be
fascinating to watch, but the rebuilding
Sun Devils are projected to finish last in
the South division. “We don’t go by
polls,” Edwards said. “We’ve got our
own aspirations. We’re trying to win a
Pac-12 championship. So whatever peo-
ple write, they can write what they
want. That’s good. Hopefully no players
are listening to that, because no coaches
are listening to it.”
USC’s next QB
Sam Darnold has left USC for the
New York Jets after one Rose Bowl vic-
tory and one Pac-12 title. He also left a
void behind center for the Trojans, and
three young passers are competing in
camp to become the next passer in their
school’s enviable lineage. Jack Sears
and Matt Fink have advantages in expe-
rience, but touted freshman J.T. Daniels
is making early strides. Coach Clay Hel-
ton is likely to wait to make his decision
until USC is close to its season opener.
The Trojans are the preseason favorites
to repeat in the Pac-12 South, but their
ability to stay afloat during their usual
daunting September schedule could de-
pend on quickly finding a standout
quarterback.
Wildcat strike
In his first season at Texas A&M, Kev-
in Sumlin coached a relatively unsung,
athletic quarterback to a surprising
Heisman Trophy. Six years after Johnny
Manziel did the improbable, Sumlin is
taking over at Arizona with the chance
to make a star out of Khalil Tate, the
dual-threat QB who passed for 1,591
yards and rushed for 1,411 more while
starting just nine games last season.
The Wildcats are a popular pick to chal-
lenge USC for the Pac-12 South title
largely on the strength of their coach-
passer duo.
Clamming is both fun, educational for kids
Fishing
Henry Miller
Guest columnist
GARIBALDI – “I would like to live
here, get clams and eat doughnuts,” said
Will Lederer, 12, of Salem.
At the time, he was munching on a
doughnut while sitting at a table at Gari-
baldi’s fabled Bayfront Bakery, a bag of
his freshly raked cockles chilling in a
cooler in the trunk of the car.
His brother, Gus, 8, smiled through a
mouthful of doughnut.
“Living the dream,” the younger Le-
derer said.
Indeed.
Will and Gus are Kay’s great neph-
ews, the sons of Kay’s niece, Sarah, and
her husband, Clint.
Avid anglers and campers all, Will
and Gus had only pursued clams one
other time, razors on a north coast Ore-
gon beach with maximum effort and
limited success.
So we offered to take them on an out-
ing to rake cockles on the north end of
Tillamook Bay while Sarah and Clint
tended to the two Baskin-Robbins fran-
chises that they own in Salem.
Some regular readers bang on about
how I bang on repetitively about pursu-
ing Oregon’s tasty bivalves.
In my defense, I like clamming as a
way of introducing kids to what are eu-
phemistically known as the “consump-
tive sports” (as in pursuing something
that you can eat) for a couple of reasons.
Principle among them are that clams
are reliably plentiful if you know where
to look, certain varieties such as cockles
and purple varnish clams are easy-pea-
sy to get, and best of all clams can’t
swim away or steal your bait.
Added to that - especially with two or
more younger kids in the mix - you won’t
have to worry about flying weights and
hook impalements along with not hav-
ing to spend the bulk of your time un-
tangling lines or picking bird’s nests out
of the reels.
A bonus is that there are lots of op-
portunities for corollary biology lessons
when someone rakes up a crab, fish or
worm in hot pursuit of the quarry, al-
though the young lads’ fascination with
washed-up eyeless fish heads from dis-
carded crab bait can be somewhat off-
putting.
And no, Will, you can’t take that
home.
Clamming also offers kid-favored in-
centives such as opportunities to get
wet and muddy and not get admon-
ished.
It’s what we outdoor educators refer
to as the complete package.
And Saturday’s minus tide at the
cusp of dawn ensured little traffic going
over and a quiet ride home with both
Will and Gus passed out in the back seat
all the way back to Salem.
We cleaned the clams, chopped up
some of the meat and had linguini with
garlic, olive oil/butter and parmesan
cheese for lunch, two plates for Will, one
each for Kay and me, and a plate of but-
tered linguini with cheese for Gus.
He said that he didn’t like clams,
which I took is more a statement of an
8-year-old’s youthful assertiveness
than the results of a previous gustatory
experience (Gus, gustatory, get it? Nev-
er mind).
Speaking about clamming …
There are at current count 23 people
on the “Clamapalooza!” email list.
It’s a shout-out to folks about week-
end clamming outings and an open in-
vitation to join us when we go.
As I said, it’s about two dozen people
… and a grand total of, let’s see, do I need
the calculator? Probably not.
One!
Showed up Saturday at Garibaldi.
But given the forecast (it rained, oc-
casionally hard), and the hour (7:21 a.m.
an hour and a half drive from Salem),
that’s pretty much par for the course
The one person who showed up, Su-
sie Bodman, a former Statesman Jour-
nal reporter/copy editor, kicked some
serious clam butt.
A first-timer, she limited.
One of the ironic twists in this story is
Will, left, and Gus Lederer show off
two of their clams after first-ever
outing to Garibaldi. KAY MILLER/
SPECIAL TO THE STATESMAN JOURNAL
that neither Kay nor I got more than a
half-dozen of our limit of 20, the rakes
being masterfully pulled by Will and
Gus and the backup shovel in Bodman’s
capable hands.
We’re thinking about opening up a
second (or is it third) avocation: Miller &
Miller Clamming Consulting and Facili-
tating.
The salary is non-existent, but the
rewards are pretty sweet.
Or maybe we’ll just get a couple more
rakes.
Yep, living the dream.
Henry Miller is a retired Statesman
Journal outdoor columnist and outdoor
writer. He can be reached via email at
HenryMillerSJ@gmail.com