Moos said he’s willing to pass up annual football road games to the Los Angeles or San Francisco areas – two traditional strongholds for WSU recruiting – if the Pac-12 spreads television revenue equally among schools.
“I’d be content with that,” Moos said this week. The Cougars’ athletic budget of $30 million is easily the Pac-10’s smallest.
Moos said Pac-10 athletic directors are scheduled to again discuss TV revenue distribution during a conference call Sept. 8 and a meeting Sept. 15 in San Francisco. Pac-10 schools currently give 55 percent of TV money to schools involved in TV games and 45 percent to the other schools. Equal distribution would bring in additional millions to WSU each year.
“I don’t know what to expect,” Moos said.
Moos said he is similarly uncertain which way the ADs are leaning on the structure of divisions in the Pac-12. The Mercury News of San Jose, Calif., reported that “multiple sources” say they are leaning toward a division with the four California schools and two Arizona schools in one division and the four Northwest schools and incoming Pac-12 members Utah and Colorado in the other.
Teams cannot finalize 2011 schedules until the divisions are set up and it’s determined if Colorado will join the league in 2012 (as currently planned) or next year.
Moos said “ideally” he wants to play Oregon or Oregon State every year in a “home” game at Seattle’s Qwest Field. The Cougars are not playing at Qwest this year for the first time since 2002.
Most WSU alumni live in Western Washington. The seven non-conference “home” games played at Qwest each drew more fans than WSU’s Martin Stadium seats (35,117).
Moos said he is engaged in preliminary discussions with Big 12 and Big Ten teams for home-and-home football games. Moos said he would “much rather” schedule home-and-home games, but he has engaged in preliminary discussions about big-money road games with Tennessee, Auburn “and a couple other schools.”
WSU and Idaho have tentatively agreed to renew their border rivalry in 2013 in Pullman. Moos said both schools are open to the possibility of changing the year due to other scheduling wants and needs.
EXTRA POINTS
Reserve running back Logwone Mitz has rejoined the Cougars after leaving the team last weekend due to a death in the family. … The NCAA cleared reserve tight end Zach Tatman to play this season. He gains a sixth year of eligibility. He played junior college basketball as a freshman. … Former WSU star Ryan Leaf has agreed to write periodic columns on WSU sports for Cougfan.com, a branch of Scout.com. … Former NFL player Marcellus Wiley, now serving as an analyst on ESPN, said Leaf was so hated by his teammates on the San Diego Chargers that some of them deliberately let pass rushers go by them to nail Leaf. … Ex-WSU center Kenny Alfred watched practice on crutches this week. He has temporarily moved back to Pullman to rehab after undergoing hip surgery for the second straight year. Alfred said his ailing hip convinced him to quit football earlier this year when he was working out with the NFL’s Tennessee Titans as a rookie free agent. … Offensive coordinators Todd Sturdy of WSU and Dana Holgorsen of Oklahoma State were teammates one season at St. Ambrose University in Davenport, Iowa. Holgorsen’s brother, Brett, is Sturdy’s best friend and a former college teammate and roommate.
