5 Observations about the Pac 10 weekend

Fig Jam

1.  Stanford is legit. 

Straight up.  This is a good team.  Their 24-16 win over UCLA wasn’t that close (24-6 going into 4th quarter) and the Cardinal/Trees/whatever are 4-1 and sitting on top of the conference.  Andrew Luck is a solid young quarterback who has a great situation right now.  He had a 70% completion percentage this weekend and threw for 200 yards.  As a redshirt freshman his maturation is being aided by one of the best running attacks in the college game.  Toby Gerhart, so long as he stays healthy, is a force to be reckoned with.  That UCLA defense he flattened on Saturday is big, physical and talented.  Gerhart had 29 carries, 134 yards, and 3 touchdowns.  That’s carrying the load for your team.

2.  Cal is down (and possibly out).

In two weeks the Bears have lost by a combined total of 72-6.  First the drubbing up in Eugene and then last weekend a 30-3 debacle against the Trojans.  Now, with no hope of getting back into the National Championship picture, and almost no hope of going to the Rose Bowl, it will be interesting to see if the bears bother with the rest of the season.  They haven’t scored a touchdown now in 2 weeks and teams are just loading up to stop Jahvid Best, who gained just 47 yards against the Trojans.  Cal’s schedule is going to get much easier moving forward (with a bye this week before heading to LA to play the Bruins), so I’m sure they will right the ship to some degree, but I’m interested to see if this team has any passion left for this season of lost opportunity.

Unfortunate that a guy who made Achile Smith into a first round draft pick, who coached  Trent Dilfer, Joey Harrington, Kyle Boller and Aaron Rodgers, has seen perhaps his most talented team derailed and his season lost because he does not have Quarterback who can perform at all. 

3.  Nobody knows what Oregon State is doing.

Sometimes they are gritty underdogs, sometimes they look like a team lacking critical pieces.  Sometimes they don’t have a quarterback, sometimes they have 2 good quarterbacks.  Sometimes they lose at home to a questionable Arizona squad, sometimes they travel to Tempe and beat ASU.  I would love to talk to someone in Vegas who is in charge of setting lines for college football and ask him, “What do you say when a person walks up and says they want to bet on the Oregon State game?”  I can’t think of any response other than, “Don’t,”  but maybe that’s just me.

One thing that we do know about OSU is that they have the Rodgers brothers, and if they can figure out a way to get those 2 the ball, the Beavers should be able to compete in any game they play. 

4.  UW – close, but not yet.

A few things we learned about UW this week.  First, even Sark makes mistakes sometimes.  With all those goalline plays Sarkesian froze up and went with vanilla sets putting Locker under center every single time.  The result was that Notre Dame’s defense loaded up, shut the dawgs down, and won the game.  If he had to do over again I’d be shocked if Sark didn’t put Locker in the shotgun and allow him to take on the line of scrimmage going downhill.  He could have barrelled in, jumped in, or even gone with a  jump pass style of play to Kavario Middleton if Notre Dame didn’t guard him.  Regardless - I place most of the blame on Sark.  It’s ok – the guy’s been pretty close to flawless for a long time.  He’s going to screw up once in a while.  Let’s just see if he learns from it.

Second – UW, is dissappointed right now to be 2-3.  That’s actually a pretty good place to be.  UW’s opponents thus far in the season have a combined record of 21-4*, which means if you take out the 2 wins for UW, UW’s 4 opponents have only lost twice (Wake Forrest over Stanford and Michigan over Notre Dame).  Thus – all things considered, UW is doing ok.  They are ten times the team they were last year.  It will be interesting to see how they handle things moving forward now that there are a few injury problems to deal with (in areas where UW could not afford any injuries).   

* LSU 5-0, Notre Dame 4-1, Stanford 4-1, USC 4-1, and Idaho 4-1.

5.  Oregon has remembered how to play offense.

It was pretty surprising when Oregon came out against Boise St. and looked terrible.  The next week Oregon needed its defense to pull it out of the fire against Purdue and after that the Ducks beat Utah despite Quarterback Jeremiah Masoli only completing 4 passes in the entire game.  Through 3 games, the vaunted spread offense that the Ducks employ was looking iffy.  But then Cal came to town and Oregon exploded – hanging 42 points on what’s supposed to be a decent Cal defense.  This past weekend, Oregon continued to gain momentum as a hapless WSU squad rolled into town for a 52-6 beatdown.  2 weeks, 94 points. 

Moving forward, it will be interesting to see how Oregon plays the rest of the season.  Especially now that they have to go out on the road again.  The Ducks have spent the last month playing in the friendly confines of Autzen stadium and the result is that they now face a stretch in their schedule where they play 3 of their next 4 games on the road, with their homegame being a Halloween affair against USC.  The Ducks have used the last month to get good after the BSU debacle, now it is time to see if they can maintain that momentum as they go to LA to face the Bruins, to Seattle to face the Huskies (after a bye week), welcome the Trojans into town, and then go down to Palo Alto to face the Cardinal.