Unlike the SEC media days, which received nearly as much coverage as will the upcoming Republican National Convention, the Pac-12 media days went by rather quietly last week.

Probably just as well, since the only real news was rather grim — for a fifth straight year, the Pac-12 Networks will not be carried on DirecTV.

We get all we want of the Big Ten Network, the SEC Network and The Longhorn Network — but we don’t get to see all of the football and basketball games played by teams we’re really interested in, in the Pac-12.

Apparently WSU coach Mike Leach entertained the conference’s media types with his thoughts on coaching milestones and “Pokemon Go,” among other things. But, aside from fishing the internet for video clips, unless your service provider carried the Pac-12 Networks, you’ll just have to take our word for it.

WSU FANS are apparently upset their beloved Cougars were “only” picked to finish fourth out of six teams in the Pac-12 North.

Oh, the outrage! Not only does WSU have Leach back for his fifth season, but also returns stars in quarterback Luke Falk and receiver Gabe Marks.

Worse, the dreaded Huskies were picked to finish second. Stanford and Oregon, picked to finish first and third, respectively, in the North, both lost their quarterbacks from last year.

Where’s the respect for the boys in the Palouse? WSU is coming off a 9-4 season and a bowl game victory in its second bowl game in three seasons. The Cougs beat Oregon, and probably should have beaten Stanford. They got poleaxed by the Huskies in the Apple Cup, but played that one without an injured Falk, and numerous WSU turnovers helped the Dawgs pile up the score.

The Huskies are the trendy pick to do well in the conference, but the Cougs probably do have a beef with where they were picked. They do have the aforementioned key players back, and people are no longer questioning whether Leach can get it done in Pullman like he did in Lubbock.

The last time WSU got its fans’ hopes up by going to a bowl game, in 2013, the Cougs followed that up by stumbling to a 4-8 season, leading to a little bit of rumblings concerning Leach.

Something called collegefootball news.com predicts WSU will finish 5-7, lose the Apple Cup, and also lose to Boise State, Oregon State, Oregon, Stanford, Arizona State and Colorado. OSU and Colorado are both picked to finish last in their respective divisions. Barring a collapse this season, the Cougars should win a few more than five games. For what it’s worth, Collegefootballnews.com picks Boise State to go 12-0 and the Huskies to finish 9-3.

THAT SAME website also picked the Idaho Vandals to finish 6-6, which would make them bowl eligible for the first time since 2009, and only the second time this century.

They pick Idaho to go 1-3 in the preseason, beating Montana State and losing to Washington, WSU and UNLV. They pick the Vandals to go 5-3 in the Sun Belt, one of the losses coming at Appalachian State, which finished second in the Sun Belt last season. But they also have Idaho losing on the road to a couple of teams that finished below .500 in league last year — Louisiana-Lafayette (3-5) and Texas State (2-6), which is a little surprising. Idaho finished 3-5 in league, but that was after Couging a couple of road games in league, at New Mexico State and South Alabama. If not for that, the Vandals would have been 6-6 and bowl eligible last season.

But the website also has Idaho going 6-0 at home, capped by a win over Georgia State, which finished fourth (5-3) in the conference.

The good news is, in a little more than a month, all of this talk will turn into action.

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at mnelke@cdapress.com. Follow him on Twitter@CdAPressSports.