Jul. 10—LAS VEGAS — Jake Dickert turned around, footsteps echoing in a hallway somewhere inside the Bellagio Hotel and Casino, and greeted the guy he thought for sure was gone.
Striding his way was Ron Stone Jr., the former Washington State edge rusher who played his sixth and final season last fall for Dickert, and embraced him.
The two men wore bright smiles as they chatted. They talked about Stone, his family, his new opportunity with the Las Vegas Raiders, with whom he signed an undrafted free-agent deal this spring. That’s the reason he was in town, after all.
For WSU, Stone’s presence was about the only similarity between Wednesday’s conference media day and the dozens that preceded it. At this event — a scaled-down version that featured WSU and its fellow Pac-12 holdover, Oregon State, in a night dubbed “After hours with the Beavs and Cougs” — the differences stood out like a sore thumb.
For one, there were only two institutions represented, not the usual 12. As each coach and player talked on the main stage and in quieter moments off to the side, a few themes kept surfacing.
We’re in the fight.
This is our chance to show who we are.
We’re two proud schools.
Nearly a year after the Pac-12 as we know it collapsed, all but WSU and OSU defecting for other conferences and forcing the Cougars and Beavers to find temporary homes in other conferences, the reality rippled through a ballroom in Las Vegas.
“I mean, it’s a lot of mixed emotions going into my last year,” said WSU wide receiver Kyle Williams, who transferred from UNLV and played his first season in Pullman last season. “But as they always say — just take it one day at a time, and that’s what I am (doing). Just living in the moment, enjoying everything, taking it in and not letting anything past me.”
During nearly two hours, WSU head coach Dickert and OSU…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/two-team-pac-12-media-035900208.html
Author : The Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Wash.
Publish date : 2024-07-11 03:59:00
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