Monday, October 8, 2012

Pac-12 football: Weekend wrap (the North rules, Cal rises, Stanford survives and Utah struggles)

I?ll say this for the Thursday games: They?make it much easier to watch all the weekend action.

With two teams playing on Thursday and two teams idle because they?re playing the following Thursday, there are only four Saturday games.

My formula for comprehensive Saturday viewing went like this: Attend one afternoon game, tape the other and get home in time to flip between the two night games ? and then turn on the DVR.

Division of the week: North.

It swept the South, although not in the fashion anyone would have expected, and at this point?appears to be the superior division.

With the Oregon schools and Stanford, it has three of the league?s top-five teams ? and maybe three of the top four.

I?m not convinced ASU belongs on the top tier.

Letdown game of the week: Oregon State.

After the upset of Wisconsin and back-to-back road wins over UCLA and Arizona, the Beavers brought less than their best Saturday.

That was still plenty good enough to beat Washington State.

Bounce-back of the week: Stanford.

One week after being held without a touchdown, the Cardinal?s offense scored seven against Arizona.

(Next week, it will be Washington?s turn to develop a false sense of confidence from playing the Wildcats? depleted, hapless defense.)

Bounce-back of the season: Cal.

The Bears thumped UCLA with the effort and execution that many (myself included) expected to see all along.

The win just may have saved the season ? if the Bears can keep the momentum going against Washington State (road) and Stanford (home).

Sloppy-as-a-season-opener game of the week I: USC-Utah.

The teams combined for 27 penalties for 222 yards.

You?d expect that out of the Trojans, but not a team coached by Kyle Wittingham.

Sloppy-as-a-season-opener game of the week II: UCLA-Cal.

The teams combined for 23 penalties for 199 yards.

Turnover team of the week: UCLA.

The Bruins lost the ball six times at Cal after committing just nine in their previous five games.

Turnover state of the week: Washington.

The Huskies and Cougars combined for 10 giveaways (five each) in their losses at Oregon and OSU, respectively.

Turnstile impression of the week: Stanford-Arizona.

75 points after halftime and a total of 1,234 yards, with each team racking up 617.

Exhausted arm of the week: Matt Scott.

The Arizona quarterback ?attempted a school-record 69 passes and completed a school-record 45 passes.

We?ve-seen-this-song-and-dance-before team of the week: Washington State.

The Cougars are 2-4 overall and 0-3 in league play under new coach Mike Leach.?They?re averaging 21.8 points per game, or eight fewer than last year under Paul Wulff.

Gauntlet continues team of the week: Washington.

The Huskies are two-thirds the way through the toughest stretch of league play any team will face this season.

After upsetting then-No. 8 Stanford and getting spanked by No. 2 Oregon, they now face No. 11 USC.

And it won?t get much easier after that: UW heads to Tucson and then faces No. 14 Oregon State.

Can-it-get-any-worse, yes-it-can team of the week: Utah.

The Utes dropped to 0-2 in league play after the not-as-close-as-the-score-indicates loss to USC.

Next up comes a trip to UCLA, followed by a trip to Oregon State, at which point Utah will be 0-4.

This-was-the-right-move, wasn?t-it teams of the decade: Utah and Colorado.

With Utah?s latest loss, the Utes and Colorado are 7-15 in conference games since becoming members on July 1, 2011.

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Source: http://blogs.mercurynews.com/collegesports/2012/10/07/pac-12-football-weekend-wrap-the-north-rules-cal-rises-stanford-survives-and-utah-struggles/

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