This morning in Jerry Brewer’s column in the Seattle Times, I read a comment from Steve Sarkisian that made me laugh and nearly made me sick.

The U Dub football coach was talking about in-state blue-chippers who – EGADS!!!! – chose to leave and play for other schools such as Stanford, USC and Notre Dame.

“There will come a day when every kid in the state of Washington dreams and hopes of playing for the Huskies,” Coach Sark said. “We’re just not quite there yet.”

A few comments from the Go 2 Guy…

As I mentioned on Facebook and Twitter, there will NEVER come a day when every kid in the state dreams and hopes of playing for the Huskies. There will ALWAYS be some kids who grow up dreaming to play for the Cougs. Presumably, there will be more and more kids who will want to go to Washington State now that Mike Leach is coaching the Cougs.

It just galls me when I hear stuff like that. I’ve got news for you, Coach Sark, you’re not quite there yet, nor will you ever get there, not in my lifetime, not in your lifetime, not in your kids’ lifetime or their kids’ lifetime.

Quick story – a buddy of mine, Jack Carlson, who I roomed with at Gannon Hall in the mid-‘70s, has a daughter who’s a freshman at WSU. Jack didn’t want her to go to WSU because he’s so close to her and didn’t want her to be that far away. He would have been fine with Western or Central, but WSU wouldn’t be his first choice for her.

It surprised me when I heard this because I love that my daughter’s at Washington State, and I’m looking forward to driving over there and seeing her this weekend.

Anyway, Jack’s daughter finally told him: “Dad, I was born to be a Coug.” So he gave in, and she’s a freshman who is enjoying her first year of college.

Point being – if there is a point – not everyone grows up wanting to be a Husky. That won’t change even if Sarkisian wins a national championship – and God help us if he does; he’s already insufferable, imagine what he’ll be like if he’s coaching the best team in the country.

Then again, that’s something we won’t have to worry about because now that we’ve got Leach, the Cougs have as much of a shot at Pac-12 and national championships as the Huskies do. If anyone wants to refute that, that’s fine, but I’ll put Coach Mike’s record up against Coach Sark’s record, and you tell me who’s done better to this point. Yep, it’s Coach Mike, hands down.

Here’s the other thing – if Sark gets things rolling, which is a big if, he’ll get more and more inquiries from NFL teams, such as the call he got from the Rams this year. It will be interesting to see if he hangs around long-term. I’m guessing he won’t.

Let’s see how this sucker plays out in the next few years. I’m guessing more and more kids like O’Dea’s Sam Flor and Nooksack Valley’s B.J. Salmonson will sign with the Cougs because they want to be Cougs because they dreamt of someday being Cougs.

A friend of mine named Joe had too much to drink while tailgating before the Cougar football game at San Diego State this year. At some point, the booze overtook Joe’s ability to function, and Joe fell flat on his face.

He was bloodied and bewildered. My sources tell me that Joe kept saying: “What the hell happened?”

That’s how I felt watching last night’s game between the Cougs and the Wildcats in Tucson. Arizona won 85-61. I didn’t expect us to get blown out. I thought we’d keep it close and maybe even win.

We had just beaten the best team in the Pac-12 in Cal, and we also beat a decent Stanford team last Thursday. Should have known, though – both games were in Pullman, and this one wasn’t.

I still thought we’d have a better showing, and when we didn’t, I felt like my battered buddy and kept saying to myself: “What the hell happened?” (By the way, Joe was at the game last night and was probably asking the same question.)

More questions: When am I ever going to learn when it comes to the Cougs? Why do I get my hopes up? After 36 years of watching Cougar football and basketball, shouldn’t I know better? What’s the matter with me?

Plain and simple, I was bummed out by that game last night. Just thought we were terrible. And I couldn’t believe how many threes Arizona made. Kept thinking they’d miss, but they didn’t.

Offensively we were a mess. We had a heck of a time just passing the ball. I don’t get how you can go from beating Cal to getting your doors blown off by Arizona in the span of five days.

Oh well, Go Cougs. Maybe we’ll beat the Sun Devils tomorrow.

SPECIAL GUEST HOST: Steve Sandmeyer fills in for the regular host of “The Kevin Calabro Show” today from 3 to 7 p.m. on 710 ESPN Seattle. I’m looking forward to working with him.

Sandmeyer used to work with Mitch Levy on “The Mitch in the Morning Show” on KJR. He was surprisingly let go in December. I thought Sandmeyer was a terrific sidekick, and his Magnolia Dynamo bit, when he spoofs football handicapper Greg Roberts, was hilarious stuff.

He has filled in previously for Dave Grosby on “The Bob and Groz Show” on 710 ESPN Seattle. It should be a fun four hours today. Hope you can catch the show.

Billy Cundiff and Kyle Williams – they were the goats of the AFC and NFC championship games.

This morning there are fans in Baltimore who are mad at Cundiff for missing a 32-yard field goal that would have sent their game with the Patriots into overtime.

There are fans in San Francisco who are mad at Williams for losing two balls to the Giants on punt returns.

They are both being singled out as the primary reason why their teams won’t be playing in the Super Bowl.

I should be mad at Cundiff too, but I’m not. I would have won $240 if the AFC championship game had gone to overtime because I bet $30 at 8-1 odds that it would.

I’m not mad at him because I feel sorry for him more than anything else. Can you imagine being one of the best in the world at what you do, and then when the spotlight is at its brightest, you shank a kick the way Cundiff did?

We have all choked at something at one point or another. If you remember how that felt, how can you not feel bad for Cundiff no matter the ramifications of his missed kick.

With Williams, I wouldn’t say that he choked as much as he used poor judgment on the first punt for not getting far enough away from the bouncing punt. He should not have been close enough to allow the ball to graze off of his knee.

Then on the one in OT, Williams should have had a firmer grip on the ball so it couldn’t be knocked out. But he didn’t choke like Cundiff did.

If I’m Williams, when I’m home by myself, I can go through what happened and be OK with it. I’d even learn from it. I wouldn’t let it consume me. I know I’m 23 years old and will have plenty of time for redemption.

But Cundiff? If I were him, I’d have a much tougher time getting over my missed kick. It would be one thing if it was a poor snap and I missed it a little left or a little right. But I would sit on the couch at the Cundiff estate and know that I just flat-out whiffed during the biggest moment of my life.

I checked out Cundiff’s Wikipedia page and found out that he’s an undrafted free agent from Drake who has played for nine NFL teams in nine years. He once kicked seven field goals during a Monday night game for the Cowboys.

In 2009, he replaced Steven Hauschka, who is now the Seahawks’ kicker, in Baltimore. He was so good last year that he kicked for the AFC in the Pro Bowl.

The Ravens signed him to a five-year, $15 million contract last January.

I’m guessing this must be an awfully tough day for Cundiff. He’ll probably have to answer more questions from the media. He’ll probably drive home and hear the criticism from Ravens’ fans, if he even listens to sports radio.

If I’m his dad, I’m flying from wherever I am to wherever he is. And as soon as I see my son, I’m giving him the biggest bear hug I’ve ever given him. I’m going to tell him the stuff that dads say to sons at moments like these – to keep his head up while reminding him that we love him to death.

I’m then going to take him to a golf course in Hawaii or a bar in the neighborhood. It doesn’t matter where we go, really, I just want to hang out with him and be there for him.

If he wants to talk about it, great. If he doesn’t, that’s fine too. I just hope it doesn’t stay with Cundiff for the rest of his life.

I remember getting a Facebook message from Daven Harmeling, who missed a 3-pointer from the corner against Vanderbilt during the NCAA Tournament a few years ago in Sacramento. He said that it’s been hard to get over that shot not going in.

Sitting courtside, I had a great view of that shot. He had a good look at it, and he had a nice release – it just didn’t go in. Unlike Cundiff, he didn’t choke, he just didn’t make it. But it lingered with him, and he never shot very well after that, which is too bad because Harmeling at one time was a terrific shooter.

I tried to convince him to let it go, and I hope he has. I hope in time that Billy Cundiff will be able to let it go too.

I’m saying let it snow because we get enough rain around here, and I like the change of pace. I like the beauty of the snow. I like how quiet it is.

I like sledding with my kids, which is what we did last night. They sledded a lot; I sledded down a hill and over a jump one time, and that was enough. I think I might have tweaked my back. I know that I scraped up one of my hands – I wasn’t wearing gloves.

Then while I was trying to see if I had every body part in tact, Willie the Go 2 Pup started humping on me, which is strange but familiar behavior with him. I guess he doesn’t realize I’m not a dog, and he doesn’t get that he was fixed when he was 6 months old.

It’s worth the hassles of driving in the snow. I haven’t been out as yet today, but the last two days haven’t been that bad driving into Seattle from the Renton Highlands. There haven’t been many people out, which makes it easier to get around.

Today might be a different story. The thing about snow and having little kids around the house, it brings back fond childhood memories of listening to the radio and hearing that the Lake Washington School District was closed for the day.

Loved that. They did it in alphabetical order, and I remember listening really intently when they got to the L’s. When they said, Lake Washington School District was two hours late instead of closed; I remember the disappointment of not being able to spend the whole day at home.

You never think about having to make up that day in June and shortening your summer.

My daughter was excited when she texted me Wednesday night to tell me that WSU was going to be closed on Thursday. Which contributed to the small attendance of 3,119 at the Coug-Stanford game last night.

Wish I’d been there. What got into Faisal Aden? He scored 33 points, went 13-for-13 at the foul line. Where’s that game been? And can it continue? Hate to sound skeptical, but I’d guess probably not, though we certainly need that to happen if we’re going to beat Cal tomorrow afternoon.

Go Cougs.

Here’s Art Thiel’s take on the snow and the bad rap Seattle drivers get.

Some readers have been responding by email to me regarding this column I wrote for the 710 ESPN site today, so I thought I would post a link here also.

A Crimson And Gray Look At Huskies’ Coaching Changes

A few weeks ago, the fairly maligned Nick Holt was fired, and 48 hours later Justin Wilcox was hired to replace him as the Huskies’ defensive coordinator.

Then the Dawgs brought in Peter Sirmon to replace the fired linebackers coach Cox, whose first name escapes me.

Does it bother anyone over there that both of these guys are Ducks? I thought y’all hated the Ducks. And now you’ve got two Ducks on your staff? I guess they’re all right now if they improve your sorry-ass D.

Then yesterday we find out that Nick Montana is leaving school, and I say good for you, Nick. Keith Price owns the quarterbacking job, and it makes more sense to leave than to stay and back him up for the next two years.

I suppose I should have a different attitude about that, and maybe I would if it were my kid. If you’re Joe Montana, shouldn’t you be telling your kid that he made a commitment to Washington and should stick it out? Isn’t that what we as parents are supposed to do in situations like these?

Or maybe you’d say the hell with the life lessons, I don’t blame you son, go ahead and transfer so you can play somewhere else if that’s what makes you happy. As a dad, I’d probably be torn on that one, and maybe the Hall of Famer was too.

But the bigger news was the arrival of Tosh Lupoi, who I had never heard of until his name popped up last week. Lupoi was an assistant coach at Cal until the Dawgs poached him from the Golden Bears yesterday.

From everything I’ve read about the guy – which isn’t much – he sounds like he’s God’s gift to recruiting, God’s gift to coaching, God’s gift to everything under the sun.

I don’t know him, but I already don’t like him because…

• He’s a Husky, duh.
• He’s 30 years old and has already climbed higher on his career ladder than I’ve climbed on mine, and I’m 54, which means I’m pretty much done climbing and just trying my damndest to hang on to the rung where I’m at.
• He’s getting a raise from $164,000 to $500,000.

Are you flippin’ kidding me? A defensive-line coach making half a million a year? Is that what it’s come to?

People wondered who my new whipping boy would be when Holt left town. I’ve found him – Tosh Lupoi, the newest most overpaid coach on the U Dub football staff.

On some levels – one – I can see why Lupoi took the job. If someone offered me a raise making three times what I’m making now, I might consider it myself.

But if I were working at Washington State, my alma mater, I wouldn’t. And Lupoi’s a Cal alum. That’s a pretty lame thing to do – not only to leave your alma mater, but to join another Pac-12 school and perhaps take a recruit (Shaq Thompson) who was headed to Cal.

To leave Cal when it’s two weeks from letter-of-intent day is doubly lame. If you ask me, Lupoi lacks character. People with character and loyalty to their school wouldn’t make this kind of move.

I want to know what Cal coach Jeff Tedford thinks of this God’s gift to everything. I’m going to call him to find out. I’ll bet Tedford will call him God’s gift to traitors.

Honestly, though, it doesn’t matter to me. You can have your Tosh Lupoi, and I’ll take my Mike Leach in future recruiting battles. I know that Lupoi is younger and hipper and cooler, but Leach is still going to kick his ass, thank you very much.

Go Cougs.

The Go 2 Twins and I went to last night’s game at Alaska Airlines Arena. Here’s the column I wrote for the Kitsap Sun; We Were In Coug Heaven. And Then It Went To…

One of my kids had a hard time dealing with Washington State’s 75-65 loss to the Huskies, calling it “the worst night of my life.”

I guess that goes without saying.

I’ll be heading to Alaska Airlines Arena with the Go 2 Twins and though we believe the Cougs are GOING to win, a little extra hope wouldn’t hurt.

There’s precedent – we beat the Dawgs in Seattle last year.

Both teams, frankly, are worse than they were last year. The Huskies lost to South Dakota State last month and nearly lost to Seattle U. Tuesday night.

The Cougs, well, I’m not sure what to say about our team. We suffer from LOFT – Lack Of Flippin’ Talent. Ryan Divish of the Tacoma News Tribune coined that one, not necessarily for the Cougs specifically, but for teams in general when they’re not very good.

Individually we have enough talent to beat the Dawgs. Collectively we seem to have the same problems they do. Not to single out Faisal Aden, but I will anyway, knowing full well that the kid isn’t going to read this anyway – I get the feeling that he is one of our problems. He shoots too frequently and doesn’t connect often enough.

Remember when Aden first joined the team last year? He could never miss. I just sense that he’s a chemistry-wrecker of sorts, though I could be wrong. We won five in a row this season during a stretch in which he was injured and didn’t play in four of those five games. I doubt that that was a coincidence.

When you beat Oregon State like we did in Spokane, it tells me that we have a potentially decent team. When you lose to Utah like we did last week in Salt Lake City, it also tells me that we could finish 12th in the Pac-12.

So I don’t know. I’ll go to the game hoping that Tony Wroten dominates the ball like he normally does and turns it over like he normally does without doing too much damage to the Cougs with his slashes to the hoop.

And I’ll believe that Brock Motum scores 25 points to lead the Cougs to a rousing win. I would like to leave Hec Ed happy, and I would like to be heading to my truck NOT looking at my kids shaking their heads again. They think we always lose to the Huskies in everything.

Not today, baby, not today. Go Cougs.

NFL ACTION: Not sure if I’m calling yesterday’s playoff game between the 49ers and the Saints the best that I’ve ever seen because I had the 49ers and the points or if it truly was regardless.

I’m thinking the latter – four touchdowns in the last four minutes, four lead changes in the last four minutes. Unbelievable stuff in the 49ers’ 36-32 win.

I got sucked into the Tim Tebow stuff and took the Broncos and the points in the AFC game, which was dumb, but oh well – I typically take underdogs anyway, and I never take Tom Brady because I don’t like the Patriots, which was the wrong way to be thinking last night.

Today I’m taking the Texans and 9 against Baltimore and the Giants and 8 against the Packers. Why the Texans? I don’t know, I just like the points. But geez, Jim, won’t the Texans, with a rookie quarterback, get hammered by the Ravens at home? Probably, but I’m taking the points anyway.

And the only thing that worries me about the Giants is that everyone seems to like their chances today. When everyone sides with a team, you’re best to go the other way because the public is usually wrong. So I’m actually thinking about taking the Pack and laying the points, but I’ll probably stick with the Giants and cross my fingers.

Follow me on Twitter at @cougsgo. I don’t tweet that often, but if you will, I will.

Even though I put some money on Alabama, I was still bored with the national championship game last night.

I know that the SEC has won six national titles in a row – and in case we’d forgotten – they ran a commercial during the game telling us as much.

But if that’s SEC football, I’d rather watch Pac-12 football even if we don’t have a national champion in the conference.

I’ll bet that Oregon, Stanford and USC would have given Alabama a better game than LSU did. And a better game means a more entertaining game.

Fortunately BCS officials are meeting today to discuss changes. I doubt that there will be any major changes, but it sounds like there’s a move afoot to adopt the “plus-one” format.

I assume that would mean if the plus-one format had been in effect this year, third-ranked Oklahoma State would face Alabama for the national championship in a game that would be played after last night’s game.

Better than that, I would hope that they’d come up with a Final Four based on whatever they want to base it on. The No. 1 team would face the No. 4 team in one semifinal, and the No. 2 team would face the No. 3 team in the other.

In that scenario, LSU would have faced Oregon in one semi, and Alabama would have faced Oklahoma State in the other. Then the two winners would meet for the championship.

This way you’d have more teams involved, and you’d have contrasting styles clashing. That isn’t what we had last night. We had two marginal offenses banging heads with two terrific defenses.

Hopefully change is coming and we’ll hear about it later today.

Go Cougs.

If you’re a first-time visitor, thanks for stopping by the website. If you’re a regular visitor, thanks for your continued support.

I’ve been sporadic with the posts of late, mostly because I was in Arizona on vacation hanging out with my kids.

Not sure what to make of the Cougs’ 62-60 overtime loss to Utah last night. Even though we’re not very talented ourselves, we should still be good enough to beat one of the worst teams in the country.

I saw that we were 8 for 15 on threes, which is terrific until you consider that we were 13 for 33 on twos. Outside of Brock Motum, it looks like we pretty much sucked.

To be honest, I haven’t been following the Cougs real closely as yet. I saw the game against Gonzaga in December when we rallied and nearly beat the Bulldogs. That gave me hope for the season until we lost every game in whatever that tournament was in Los Angeles, including the final one to UC-Riverside.

But after that, we played well again, and it’s probably not a coincidence that we played well while Faisal Aden was on the bench. That guy, when he first played for WSU last year, he couldn’t miss. Now his misses outnumber his makes, and he strikes me as being a chemistry-wrecker. You can also tell that he’s at least partially in Ken Bone’s doghouse.

Bone said last night that when Aden’s not scoring, he has to bench him and put other players on the floor, players who presumably play better defense and put the team ahead of themselves.

We’ll see what happens against Colorado tomorrow. I’m expecting another loss, but you never know. Colorado hammered Washington last night, which was fun, and hopefully the Buffaloes will have a letdown with the Cougs coming to town.

One more thing…if Marcus Capers shoots another three the rest of the season, much less one with less than a minute to go and the Cougs leading by two, he needs to be benched and reminded that he can’t make 10-footers, let alone 20-footers. Marcus, Marcus, Marcus, we all love you for your defense and athleticism, but we don’t want you shooting 20-footers, OK? Thank you. Go Cougs.

COUG FOOTBALL SCHEDULE: It was released two days ago, and I see us going anywhere from 9-3 to 7-5. If we go 9-3, I see our losses coming to BYU in the season opener in Provo on Sept. 1, to Oregon on Sept. 29 at Century Link Field and at Stanford on Oct. 27.

That means that I have us winning some games that we wouldn’t have won in the past such as road games at Oregon State, Utah and Arizona State.

Why not be optimistic at this point with Mike Leach? I see us being 8-3 going into the Apple Cup with the Huskies entering the game at 6-5. I’m looking forward to a three-week period in late September and early October when the Huskies play Stanford, Oregon and USC, naturally hoping they go 0-3 but figuring they’ll slop out one win against those three teams.

If the Huskies go 6-6, that would be three straight so-so seasons under Steve Sarkisian, and he wouldn’t be able to blame Nick Holt for his shortcomings anymore.

Am also loving the fact that so many local blue-chip recruits are heading out of state. I thought Coach Sark was going to put a fence around the state. What happened with that?

HEADING TO PULLMAN: Leaving tomorrow morning with the Go 2 Pup. Destination: God’s country. Reason: To help the Go 2 Girl get set up in her apartment. She’s moving out of the AGD sorority at semester break. Can’t wait. Go Cougs.