Cougs get commitment from three-star Houston linebacker Jayhvion Gipson

Yesterday brought good news and bad news for fans of our Washington State Cougars. First, the good news: Three-star linebacker Jayhvion Gipson told the world he’d be committing to WSU.

Great! I believe there’s a second commitment yet to announce, seeing that Nick Rolovich twice tweeted the Bat Signal on Wednesday.

As for Gipson, he checks in at 6’1, 205 pounds and hails from Langham Creek High School in Houston, Texas. He had a Power 5 and Pac-12 offer from the Arizona Wildcats, as well as another Power 5 offer from the Kansas State Wildcats. Clearly he prefers cougars over wildcats.

Gipson also had a slew of G5 offers, including his hometown Houston Cougars (heh). That’s 11 known commits for Nick Rolovich and Washington State. Hopefully we hear about no. 12 soon.

Highlights:

Some thoughts on the Pac-12’s move to conference-only competition this fall

Michael had the news yesterday that the Pac-12 announced fall sports would go to conference-only schedules due to COVID-19. I thought this point was notable:

Truthfully though, this feels like a slow peeling of the bandage rather than tearing it off. While it’s understandable the conference will want to kick the can of cancelling seasons down the road as far as possible, with cases rising dramatically in the two states where six of their member institutions are located, including a massive outbreak of the virus in Arizona, cancellation of the season seems inevitable. The conference could, in theory, allow teams from states where the spread is less severe to participate in a different schedule format though that seems somewhat unlikely.

It seems the reasoning, as far as I can tell, is because the conference is delaying the start of mandatory athletic activities, teams wouldn’t have the usual amount of time to prepare for the season opener. Plus, those non-conference games cost the host teams money, and money probably isn’t going to be flowing into athletic departments this fall, unfortunately.

I initially thought this move, and the same one by the Big 10, was about travel. Why would it be OK to travel across the Pac-12 footprint but not to Logan, Utah? Why couldn’t Idaho ride a bus eight miles to Pullman? It’s worse in the Big 10: Iowa and Iowa State can’t play each other, but Nebraska and Rutgers can travel to face each other.

Alas, it’s probably not about travel. As Michael pointed out, this seems like the first step toward axing the entire season, which would decimate athletic departments. I’m not sure pushing fall sports to the spring semester (when, hopefully, there’s a COVID vaccine), is feasible, for many reasons. Imagine a full slate of games from January or February through April or so, and then the next season begins four months later.

This whole thing is going to be a mess, and it’s not going to bring much good news, so brace for impact. This is also a good time to point out that college football needs some sort of commissioner. Different conferences making independent decisions is making things worse.

Links

Pac-12 North season preview - Oregon is the Pac-12’s best hope at the College Football Playoff
Oregon is the conference’s best chance at the CFP, but will the Ducks have enough to make a push? Will Stanford and/or Washington bounce back? How will Washington State fare without Mike Leach?

Pac-12 to move forward with conference-only schedule for football, other fall sports | The Spokesman-Review
One day after the Big Ten announced it would move forward with conference-only schedules for fall sports teams, the Pac-12 has decided to follow suit, leaving more uncertainty around college football in 2020.

Three-star linebacker Jahyvion Gipson commits to Washington State | The Spokesman-Review
More than a month ago, Jahyvion Gipson indicated he’d be making his college decision once he was able to step foot on a few of the campuses that had expressed interest in the three-star athlete/outside linebacker.