Back when I was younger and less wise (I know it’s hard to
believe), my dad and I used to play the board game RISK.
He routinely beat the tar out of me, and since I stupidly
thought I was smarter than him, I couldn’t figure out
why.
“Australia,” he used to tell me, “Australia is
the key. Sit down there and amass armies while everyone else beats
each other up.”
Under no circumstance could you win out of Europe (“too
many ways to get attacked,” he’d say).
The old man was right. I suffered a humiliating streak of 11
straight losses before finally modifying my strategy to camp out as
supreme drug lord of South America, while making sure to forge a
non-aggression pact with whoever controlled North Africa and
Central America.
So, what does it all mean?
Beyond the fact that I, as a 21-year old, still occasionally
play a juvenile board game with my father, we can draw striking
comparisons between the game of RISK and college football. You see,
the Pac-10 is a lot like Europe. It’s so difficult to conquer
the world because, as a Pac-10 team, you’re assaulted on
every front every weekend.
By all accounts, there are no easy weekends in the Pac-10.
There is no Baylor.
There is no Vanderbilt.
There is no Rutgers.
In fact, the closest thing the Pac-10 has to any of these
doormats this year is 1-4 Stanford, and the Cardinal is liable to
throw 45 points up and shock one of the conference heavyweights any
Saturday.
It makes for exciting football, sure. But the most
roundly-sounded effect of the Pac-10 minefield is the zero BCS
championship game appearances for Pac-10 teams in the four years of
the system.
Oregon was playing arguably the best ball in the nation by the
end of last season, and yet, the Ducks single loss to a plucky
Stanford team kept them out of the Rose Bowl.
Oregon is now the only undefeated team in the Pac-10.
Meanwhile, the Miamis and Florida States have a good three or
four weekends against cream puffs and only one or two titanic
conference challenges.
See, life’s better in Australia. Just ask my dad.
Our game of the week
No. 22 Washington (4-2, 1-1) at No. 19 USC (4-2, 2-1), 12:30
p.m. ABC (regional). Neither team can afford another conference
loss this early.
Elsewhere in the Pac-10
UCLA (4-2, 1-1) at Cal (4-3, 1-2), 4 p.m. TBS (national)
Arizona State (5-2, 2-0) at No. 6 Oregon (6-0, 2-0), 12:30
p.m.
Arizona (3-3, 0-2) at Stanford (1-4, 0-2), 2 p.m.
Idle: No. 10 Washington State, Oregon State
Wait, one last thing …
Oregon kicker Jared Siegel’s 59-yard field goal Saturday
against UCLA tied a record for longest in a Pac-10 game.
Stanford’s Rod Garcia booted one from the same distance
against USC in 1973.
No word on whether or not the Trojans actually tried to block
Garcia’s field goal, or if they just passively flailed their
arms while standing upright, like you-know-who.