No drop for the Cardinal in our rankings.
2. Oregon (4-1, 2-0). LaMichael James should be back soon, but this week’s encounter against Arizona State could be interesting if he can’t go.
3. Arizona State (5-1, 3-0). Impressive second half against Utah has ASU in control of Pac-12 South.
4. Washington (4-1, 2-0). U-Dub is the one team that could derail the hype train for the Oregon-Stanford showdown and stick its nose into the North Division race.
5. USC (4-1, 2-1). Tough stretch of schedule coming up (at Cal, at Notre Dame, Stanford), and close wins against Minnesota, Utah and Arizona don’t look so impressive anymore.
6. UCLA (3-3, 2-1). Good team? Probably not. Good enough to win the South? Maybe.
7. Cal (3-2, 0-2). The Bears hung with Oregon for a half, which is as impressive as what anybody below them on this list did over the weekend.
8. Washington State (3-2, 1-1). Couldn’t hold a late lead against UCLA and has to try to bounce back this week against (gulp) Stanford.
9. Utah (2-3, 0-3). Toughest conference games are out of the way, but the offense clearly isn’t the same without QB Jordan Wynn (out for the season with shoulder injury).
10. Oregon State (1-4, 1-2). Finally got that elusive first win with surprisingly strong all-around performance against Arizona.
11. Arizona (1-5, 0-4). Toss-up with Colorado for the bottom spot; UA gets a leg up by virtue of having a good quarterback in Nick Foles.
No. 20 Arizona State at No. 9 Oregon (10:15 p.m. ET Saturday, ESPN). It’s a big game from a national perspective. From a Pac-12 perspective, neither team has much at stake — both play more meaningful divisional games down the road — but that doesn’t mean it's not worth watching. It’ll feature two fun-to-watch, fast-paced offenses and arguably the two best defensive players in the conference (ASU's Vontaze Burfict and Oregon's Cliff Harris) at one of the conference’s coolest venues (Autzen Stadium). It also could be a Pac-12 title game preview, so a good performance by ASU — even in a close loss — could be a confidence booster down the road.
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By MATT SWARTZUtah is winless in conference play after three games. Colorado is winless and doesn’t even look competitive. Arizona? Also winless — and hasn’t beaten an FBS team in its past 10 tries. USC is ineligible.
Arizona State sits at 3-0 in the conference, with wins over USC and Utah in the rearview mirror and no Stanford on the schedule, so the Pac-12 South race is over, right? Maybe not.
UCLA is still kicking after coming from behind to pull out a 28-25 win over Washington State, giving the Bruins a 2-1 start to the Pac-12 slate with winnable games against Arizona (in Tucson) and Cal (at home) coming up the next two weeks. Neither of those opponents has a conference win yet, so it’s conceivable that a UCLA team that hasn’t exactly been dominant this season will start 4-1 in Pac-12 play.
It’s also conceivable that Nov. 5 will feature not one but two division-deciding games in the conference: ASU visits UCLA, while Oregon heads to Palo Alto to take on Stanford in a de facto North Division title game.
Quite a turnaround for UCLA . . . well, kind of. The Bruins are just 3-3 overall, and their three wins are against San Jose State, Oregon State and Washington State. They’re 80th nationally in scoring offense and 95th in scoring defense — this isn’t a team ascending to the top as much as one treading water while everybody else (other than ASU) drowns. Oh, and starting quarterback Richard Brehaut left Saturday’s game in the second quarter with a broken leg — he’s likely out for the season. It was much-maligned former starter Kevin Prince, who was benched after an awful performance in a blowout loss to Texas, who came in and led the comeback against Wazzu.
"The big story of the game for me is about the guy who had been demoted, had been sent to the gallows of quarterback life," coach Rick Neuheisel told the Los Angeles Times. "We had conversations of how he needed to take care of business, but it's different once you get in the game."
Neuheisel is familiar with being in the proverbial gallows. All offseason, the talk around UCLA focused on Neuheisel’s hot-seat status and this being a make-or-break year for the former UCLA quarterback. He hasn’t broken yet — a loss to Washington State would have been a big hit in that regard — but it’s not certain that he’s made it, either.
"In order for us to stay in the hunt, to continue to build the confidence we need as a team going forward, it was a game that we had to win," UCLA offensive coordinator Mike Johnson told the Times.
Prince, whose first two TD passes of the season came Saturday, now takes control of the team heading into a stretch that will determine whether UCLA is a legitimate competitor in the South. The Bruins are a game back of ASU right now, but the Sun Devils travel to Oregon this week for a game in which the Ducks will be heavily favored. Even with a split of their next two, the Bruins could find themselves just a game back when ASU visits the Rose Bowl on Nov. 5.
And the schedule afterward isn’t impossible: UCLA finishes at Utah, home against Colorado and at USC (like the Sun Devils, the Bruins don’t play Stanford or Washington).
If the Bruins are good enough, the opportunities in the South are plentiful. If not, Arizona State will be able to walk to the finish line.
The line here all season has been (to paraphrase): We know Arizona isn’t as good as Stanford and Oregon, but we won’t know where the Wildcats stand in the Pac-12 until they start playing the teams they’re competing with in the pecking order.
With the scheduling gauntlet finally over, Saturday’s game against Oregon State was supposed to mark the start of UA’s turnaround. Things didn’t go according to plan: The 'Cats fell behind 27-6 at halftime, and a late rally wasn’t enough (sound familiar?) in an eventual 37-27 loss that was their 10th straight against FBS schools and put them at 1-5 for the season. Did we mention that Oregon State was winless coming in and lost to Sacramento State in September?
A telling stat, courtesy of FOXSportsArizona.com’s Steve Rivera: The Wildcats have trailed by at least 22 points in each of the past five games, all losses. Against Oregon, that’s not shocking. Against Oregon State? Yikes.
Oregon State was a team Arizona had to beat, and since it didn't happen, the fallout was quick and painful: Mike Stoops was fired Monday evening, barely 48 hours after the final whistle.
"While Coach Stoops did an admirable job and was able to re-establish Arizona as a football contender, it is a critical time for our football program, and I feel we need a change in leadership," athletic director Greg Byrne said in a letter to fans.
Arizona gets a bye this week, which probably comes at a good time as defensive coordinator/interim coach Tim Kish tries to rally the troops and salvage something from this debacle of a season. After the break, the Wildcats’ schedule goes as follows: UCLA, at Washington, Utah, at Colorado, at Arizona State and a nonconference season finale against Louisiana-Lafayette.
With Stoops already out the door and a long-term replacement yet to be determined, the wins don't matter as much as staying competitive; the job needs to remain attractive enough to lure the big name Byrne is likely seeking.
After all, Rich Rodriguez and Mike Leach are both out there (just sayin').
When LaMichael James went down Thursday night against Cal with a horrific-looking arm injury, the air got sucked out of Autzen Stadium in a hurry. So much of what Oregon does offensively is based on James’ running ability (or the threat of it) that his loss for any extended period of time would be devastating.
Fortunately for the Ducks, they don’t have to worry about it: The injury turned out to be only a dislocation, as X-rays were negative.
"It's not a season-ending injury, and I'll be fine," James told reporters after the game. "I'm tough. I'm a warrior, and I'm never going to quit on my team."
As for exactly when he’ll be back, James said he wasn’t sure. It obviously will be a break for Arizona State if he doesn’t play this week, but since Oregon’s schedule eases up after that (Colorado, at Washington State), the only thing that should matter for the Ducks is that he’s healthy for the showdown with Stanford on Nov. 5.
"We're gonna wait and see," James said about his return. "We have the best trainers in the country, and I'm sure they are going to get on it ASAP. And I'll be there four times a day so I can get on that field."
Stanford did exactly what was expected Saturday, obliterating Colorado by a score of 48-7. No surprise there.
The surprise came Sunday, when Stanford – which had been No. 4 in the coaches’ poll (the one that counts) – dropped to No. 5 behind a Wisconsin team that was idle. Winning a conference game on the road by 41 points apparently wasn’t impressive enough for the voters.
The odd thing isn’t necessarily the fact that Wisconsin is now ahead of Stanford; after all, Wisconsin is unbeaten and crushed then-No. 8 Nebraska in its last game, and Stanford has yet to play a ranked or particularly good team this year. But why, if the Badgers were still No. 5 after beating Nebraska, did they move up during a bye week while Stanford won in dominating fashion?
The guess here is that voters are starting to look a little more carefully at the résumés of the major-conference unbeatens. The Cardinal haven’t had many opportunities to impress against a weak schedule, and frankly, nobody cares whether they beat the Colorados and Dukes of the world by 30 or 70. Stanford’s national reputation will be based primarily on its games against Oregon (Nov. 5) and Notre Dame (season finale on Nov. 26). The silver lining is that getting national exposure later in the year could be helpful in the quest for a BCS bowl.
“We got so much exposure before the season — it has probably started to balance out,” coach David Shaw told the San Jose Mercury News. “The guys don’t care . . . and we’ll have plenty the last few games.”
The downside, of course, is that if the Cardinal run the table and end up as one of three or four unbeaten teams, their strength of schedule and trailing position in the coaches’ poll will make it just about impossible to get into the national title game. But the season’s only half over, so there are plenty of games to be played before that discussion begins.
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