For those who lament the departure of Steve ("Washington is my dream job") Sarkisian to conference rival USC as evidence of the increasingly depraved state of college sports, it is worth recalling that the Huskies benefited from a similar naked grab for cash.

But it was men's basketball. The Huskies won big, and the Cougars lost big. The coach was Marv Harshman. The year was 1972. The point is that the stakes may be higher, but little has changed in college sports. Or in life.

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The NFL regular season is three-quarters done. Who is the most valuable player on the best team? The Seahawks crowd Monday night, chanting at ESPN's post-game interview set on the Clink field, cast its vote, loudly: Russell Wilson. With more games like Monday's -- 310 yards passing, 47 yards rushing, 3 TDs, no turnovers -- the chanters may have to be taken seriously.

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Part of the tradition of the Seattle sports winter is a story that the Mariners are in pursuit of one of the premier free agent hitters in baseball. Following failed recruitments in previous years of Prince Fielder and Josh Hamilton, the Mariners, true to form and according to ESPNNewYork.com Tuesday, are said to be a major player for All-Star second baseman Robinson Cano of the Yankees.

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Almost never is a pro football game decided on the first play. Such was the immensity of the beatdown Monday night, however, that the New Orleans Saints were toe-tagged, embalmed and buried on the initial play from scrimmage. Seahawks players were only secondary players in the grid-ocide.

Condemned by a record crowd of 68,387 that set another Guinness world record for stadium noise, the Saints were shouted into a fetal, fatal position.

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It's apparent that if Russell Wilson gets any more relaxed in the maelstrom of pro football, the Seahawks will need to pack cardio paddles in the huddle in case their guy momentarily flatlines. But his remarkable cool begins to dissolve a bit when he talks about his football hero, Saints quarterback Drew Brees.

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The weather traditional for a Puget Sound late fall -- to use three meteorological terms: Crappy, icky, bleah -- is upon us. With regard to Monday night's game between the Seahawks and New Orleans Saints at the the Clink, it should be worth a point or two for the locals. The Saints are a dome team, which is NFL code for weather sissies.

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Despite the various incentives -- full house, Senior Day, reaching eight wins, elevating above a dork-bowl selection, making the Cougars shut the hell up over the past year's Apple Cup -- the Huskies came out Friday as if it were the start of the season instead of the end of it. Even Keith Price, the fifth-year senior playing his final game at Husky Stadium, was haywire.

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Joined forever at the seismometer, the New Orleans Saints and Seattle Seahawks get together again Monday night, providing a chance to revisit one of the greatest plays in the history of the NFL. The moment is among the few in pop culture of which it can be said truthfully, literally and not figuratively, that the needle was moved.

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While not exactly defiant, coach Pete Carroll was resolute Tuesday afternoon that the NFL-best, 10-1 Seahawks, rocked in the bye week by NFL drug suspensions of two defensive backs, would not be derailed.

"Not a bit, not a bit," he told reporters at his first media scrum since suspension of Walter Thurmond, and the pending suspension of Brandon Browner, were disclosed. "It's a very difficult situation for the individual. For us, we'll march on and be OK about it."

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Antoine Winfield, the longtime veteran cut at the end of training camp because he was beaten out at cornerback by younger Walter Thurmond, “is a possibility” to fill at cornerback, coach Pete Carroll said Monday, while the Seahawks wait for Thurmond to return from a pending four-game suspension for violating the NFL’s substance-abuse program.

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PEDhawks. PotHawks. Seadderall Seahawks.

When teams develop national profiles with success, their habits, quirks and misdeeds also go national. It's the snarky side of having the best record in the NFL. Walter Thurmond now adds to the nickname legacy that will be part of the media feast during the postseason.

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The case for burying Steve Sarkisian’s coaching career had a setback Saturday night in Corvallis. Borrowing a line from a Monty Python movie  -- “I’m not dead yet!” – Sarkisian found the valve the Huskies’ adrenal gland and opened it fully for an astonishing 69-27 victory over Oregon State, their first conference road win of the season.

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If the Seahawks hadn’t scrubbed the rug of the Georgia Dome with the Falcons two weeks earlier, perhaps the Saints' 17-13 win over Atlanta would have been a tad more impressive.

But the next opponent of the Seahawks did not instill shock and awe Thursday night, allowing the Falcons to create actual suspense, until their last possession inside three minutes sputtered, then died, on a 52-yard field goal attempt that missed.

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Another consequence for Chris Hansen's failure to acquire the Sacramento Kings to play in Seattle this fall: It provided time for opponents of his proposed $500 million basketball/hockey arena in SoDo to armor up. Foes Tuesday released a consultant's report that says the cost to city and county taxpayers in the proposal is more than $731 million over 32 years, not the advertised $200 million.

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No, I don't think Steve Sarkisian should be fired, even if the Huskies lose Saturday at Oregon State. But if he loses the Apple Cup for a second year in a row, he will leave himself open to the dark forces of college football over which even his patron, Washington athletics director Scott Woodward, has no control.

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Now that the Seahawks (10-1) have put some daylight between themselves and the San Francisco 49ers (6-4), Pete Carroll can use the bye week to put his feet up, light a cigar, enjoy a snifter of Courvoisier and send rude text messages to 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh.

OK, that might be a stretch. He doesn't smoke. But it also may seem a stretch to believe what he said on his Monday morning radio show ESPN 710.

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After a year away, after hectoring coach Pete Carroll all week, after No. 1 kick returner Jermaine Kearse went down with a concussion, after the Minnesota Vikings scored to trail only 17-13 with 58 seconds left in in the first half, Percy Harvin won his argument Sunday afternoon. Grinning, he ambled stealthily along the sideline before moving into position. Word swept along the Seahawks sideline. Every single player rose up and  crowded forward.

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Hard to know which part of the acid bath was worse for Washington: Eight consecutive losses to UCLA in the Rose Bowl, four touchdowns by the local kid who got away, a shoulder injury to quarterback Keith Price that knocked him out of the game by halftime, or a wire-to-wire defeat inflicted by the coach who would be Husky, Jim Mora.

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Percy Harvin is back. After three consecutive practices this week following a calendar year away from game action due to injuries, the wide receiver, who represents the Seahawks' No. 1 draft choice from April, said he's ready for the game Sunday at the Clink against his old team, the Minnesota Vikings.

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When last seen along a Seattle football sidelines, Jim Mora's Seahawks were outscored  123-37 in their final four games of 2009 to make him the first and only one-year coach in franchise history. For a Bellevue native and longtime pro coach who had been sought not only by the Seahawks but fans of his alma mater, the University of Washington, it was an epic humiliation.

Just in case you wanted to know what is driving Mora Friday night in the Rose Bowl.

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