Well, yet another September game where we wet the bed. It was interesting to hear that Mike Riley has never won a road game in September. Maybe DeCarolis and Co should take note? Anyways, if there's one thing that I think we learned from this weekend is that the top half of the Pac-10 is going to be really strong and the bottom half may not be very good at all.
#17 Brigham Young 28- 27 Washington
Didn't get a chance to see the whole game, but I did see the last couple of drives from each team. BYU definitely didn't look like a top 25 team, but what little I saw it appeared that their offense might be defense. Locker yet again proved why he is one of the conference's top QBs, leading his team in the final couple of minutes to what appeared to be the game tying score with only 2 seconds left. If anyone didn't see what happened, just review my Fan Post "Excessive Celebration. WTF?!" UW got screwed and the PAT was blocked and BYU went on to win. UW looked improved (from what I saw), but I still don't think they are going to be good enough to win more than 2 games this year.
#19 Penn State 45-14 Oregon State
This game was over by the 1st quarter, and I think that was probably the most frustrating thing. When we finally did get on the board and it appeared we might have some momentum getting Penn State to a 3rdand 7, we gave up the first down and they drove down the field and scored with little time left before the half to go into halftime 35-7. Their offense did whatever they wanted to against our defense and there were way too many missed tackles. A couple things we learned about our team this year: 1. Jacquizz Rodgers appears to be the real deal. 2. Our defense cannot tackle. Whatsoever. 3. Oppos ing teams are going to run the ball down our throats. If there's anything optimistic about our team, is that if we can learn to tackle our defense could be very solid again. We are getting to the backfield against the run, but then whiffing on tackles. Hopefully this is more indicative of our slow starts and not an indication of the year to come.
#15 Arizona State 41-17 Stanford
Don’t know if anyone really predicted ASU rolling Stanford like this. Rudy Carpenter put up huge numbers (345 yards, 3 TD, 1 INT), while having a pretty balanced rushing attack running for 127 yards. Their defense was probably most impressive, holding Stanford to a measly 3.9 yards per PASSING attempt and only 3.8 yards per rush. This worries me because now I’m not so sure how good Stanford actually is or if we just made them look like stars. The game was relatively close until about 10 minutes left, when ASU scored 2 quick touchdowns to put the game out of reach for the Cardinals. The Sun Devils could be a force to be reckoned with come October and November.
#18 Oregon 66-24 Utah State
Pretty much what everyone expected, except I think that Utah State scored a few more points than we all thought, albeit 10 points were when UO put the scrubs in. Not much to report really, but Blount looked like he could be a star, especially in that offense. Oh yeah, and the team put up 400 rushing yards and almost 300 passing yards. That’s a lot, whoever you’re playing. Let’s see them against a good defense before we rush (no pun intended) to judgment. The defense did “ok” but they didn’t force any turnovers against a crappy Utah State offense. I suppose they didn’t need to, but the question will be they able to when they play against USC, ASU, and Cal this year.
Cal 66-3 Washington State
I think everyone expected Cal to win and win big. But I don’t think anyone expected this. Cal looked impressive, putting up more than 500 yards of total offense and holding WSU to a mere 167. Cal only threw for 114 yards, but they really didn’t need to, putting up 391 yards and 7 rushing TDs. Jahvid Best had without a doubt the game of his young career, rushing for 200 yards and 3 TDs on only 14 carries. To put it in perspective, WSU’s best runner was Tardy running for 20 yards on 14 carries (with a long of 9). Take his long away, and he ran for 11 yards on 13 carries. Impressive stuff from Cal’s D, not so much from WSU’s O. Cal also appears to have returned to their form of a couple years ago and appears poised to try and challenge for a Pac-10 title this year. Regarding WSU, I stick to my original statement that the Apple Cup will be a game with both teams 0-8 in conference play. It’s going to be a long year for the folks from Pullman.
Arizona 41-16 Toledo
It was another high scoring game for UA and another solid performance for Tuitama (292 yards and 2 TDs). Nic Grigsby ran for 135 yards and 3 touchdowns on 20 carries. UA defense gave up 250 yards total, so not really impressive but not really bad either. Don’t know anything about Toledo, but I figured it’d be a closer game. Still not sure how good this UA team is, and we probably won’t find out until October 18th 25th when they get their first real challenges going against Cal and USC in consecutive weeks.
So that pretty much sums up what went down in the Pac-10 this past weekend. So far it appears that the top 4 teams USC, Cal, ASU, and Oregon are going to challenge each other for the Pac-10 crown, and it appears that this could be the year that somebody new takes the title outright. I think the biggest disappointment so far has been OSU. I think we all kind of expected WSU and UW to be pretty bad, but OSU was supposed to at least challenge in the top 3 or 4.
Pac-10 Power Rankings through Week 2:
1. USC (1-0, 0-0)
2. ASU (2-0, 1-0)
3. Oregon (2-0, 1-0)
4. Cal (2-0, 1-0)
5. UCLA (1-0, 0-0)
6. Arizona (2-0, 0-0)
7. Stanford (1-1, 1-1)
8. Oregon State (0-2, 0-1)
9. Washington (0-2, 0-1)
10. Washington State (0-2, 0-1).