Roundup: Hype surrounding Washington football heading into 2018 season

Matt Calkins of The Seattle Times whips up a column on the hype surrounding Washington football heading into the 2018 season. The Dawgs were picked to win the Pac-12 by the media in the preseason poll released Wednesday to start Pac-12 Football Media Day. That season opener against Auburn sure is gonna have some eyeballs on it.

While USC is favored to win the Pac-12 South, Arizona State and Herm Edwards could be the big story of the division, writes Ben Bolch of the Los Angeles Times.

Out with one UCLA coach, in with another – ESPN is hiring former UCLA football coach Jim Mora to replace Chip Kelly as an analyst, reports Joe Lucia of Awful Announcing.

Wondering why Stanford running back and Heisman Trophy candidate Bryce Love wasn’t at 2018 Pac-12 Football Media Day on Wednesday? As it turns out, Love had already used an excused absence for one of his summer school classes, so he had to stay back on The Farm and attend classes (USA TODAY).

Let’s get to a couple of stories we did from Media Day — first, Sarah Kezele has this on Colorado quarterback Steven Montez curbing his diet of frozen pizzas to get in better shape for football. He told our Ashley Adamson that he’d eat two frozen pizzas for lunch, two for dinner and one as a late-night snack, all the while chasing it with some Dr. Pepper. Big ups here.

Next, Mike Leach is always good for a fun off-topic quote or 20 in a media-day setting, and this year, he feared that was going to bring the hustle and bustle of Los Angeles to Pullman after giving a glowing review of it to media members during his podium session. He also defeated Ashley Adamson in a sword fight (which you can see in the link), so all in all, a pretty solid day for Leach.

Michael Lev writes about Arizona quarterback Khalil Tate’s experience at 2018 Pac-12 Football Media Day and becoming much more of a public figure after his breakout 2017 season.

Although he resigned from his assistant coaching position to be come the head coach of the San Antonio team in the Alliance of American Football, Mike Riley will still have a role with the Beavers, Oregon State head coach Jonathan Smith said at 2018 Pac-12 Football Media Day (The Oregonian/OregonLive).

Kurt Kragthorpe spends this article discussing Utah football’s brutal conference schedule, which is probably the toughest of any contending team in the South. The Utes were picked to finish second in the South in the Pac-12 preseason poll.

J. Brady McCullough of the Los Angeles Times gives us this story on Clay Helton masterminding a video series featuring USC players entitled “One For All.”

Nick Daschel of The Oregonian/OregonLive writes that Oregon quarterback Justin Herbert “chooses to be humble rather than Hollywood” and goes into his development as a leader and quarterback.

This happened last week, but it’s just making its way around the American Twitterverse Wednesday: Former Cal women’s basketball forward Penina Davidson is signing with a pro team in Australia, the MAC Adelaide Lightning. Davidson is from New Zealand, so she’s returning closer to home. Other intriguing names on the roster are Kayla Alexander (Indiana Fever) and Nia Coffey (Las Vegas Aces).