SAN DIEGO – From the moment they walked off the field in San Diego, the Washington State Cougars have tried to distance themselves from the horror film that was last year’s Holiday Bowl game against Minnesota.For approximately the next 330 days, it was a mostly successful mission.But then, on college football’s selection day, the San Diego bowl announced its 2017 pairing: Washington State versus Michigan State.Yes, another Big Ten challenge will be awaiting the Cougars Thursday at 6 p.m.(FS1) as they gear up for their fourth bowl game in five years.The Spartans bring in a defense prototypical of the Big Ten Conference they play in – and one that bears more than one comparison to the Minnesota team that shielded the Cougars from the end zone until the fourth quarter and held Mike Leach’s vaunted offense to just 303 yards.The Spartans are big, strong and physical – no glaring weaknesses and no discernible soft spots the Cougars might be able to attack.“You’ve got kind of contrasting styles,” Leach said.“… I think it’s a good matchup.I think it will be fun to watch.” If the game is anything at all like Wednesday’s Holiday Bowl eve news conference, it won’t lack entertainment value for the large crowd of fans who’ve flocked to sunny San Diego.Contrasting styles were on display there, too.On one side was Leach, the eccentric WSU coach who’s always been one of college football’s best talents behind a podium.On the other was MSU’s Mark Dantonio, who’s more on the mundane side and not particularly known for bringing as much color to interactions with the media.Leach spoke first, covering a wide range of topics, from his starting quarterback’s non-throwing hand – which was covered in a cast while the Cougars were walking into practice Tuesday at Southwestern College – to his experience owning a pet raccoon, recently chronicled in an article from The Players’ Tribune.Leach stole the show again during Dantonio’s Q&A when he removed the lid from a Starbucks coffee cup and repeatedly blew into his hot beverage.He moved on to another cool-down method, reaching into a glass of ice water and plucking out a few cubes before dropping them into the Starbucks cup.The WSU coach, by the way, didn’t offer much on senior signal-caller Luke Falk, only revealing that “he has had something on his hand all year,” Leach said, “and hence we named him the King Slayer.” He added: “Beyond that, you’re on your own.” Leach’s bit on the pet raccoon, named after the Lord of the Rings’ Bilbo Baggins, also got a round of chuckles from the assembly of beat writers and television reporters gather in the ballroom of San Diego’s Manchester Grand Hyatt Hotel.“They’re quite a bit more maintenance free than you would think … They do like shiny objects,” he said.“Yeah, I kinda would like to have a pet raccoon again, but, you know, bouncing around the country it makes it tough.…Then, you know, there’s the time when they, you know, they hit kinda raccoon teenage years and it’s time for them to