SOUTH
1. USC (No. 10) When the point spread is 40, and you cover, it means one of two things: the favorite is really good or the underdog is really bad. As is usually the case in sports, it was probably a little bit of both on Saturday when USC trounced Colorado 50-6 at the Coliseum. Heisman candidate Matt Barkley broke the Pac-12 and USC career touchdown passing records by chucking six touchdown passes and only missing one completion. Receiver Robert Woods also became USC’s career receptions leader.
2. Arizona State Who doesn’t love a good college football prank? Some wayward Oregon Ducks flew down to Tempe and painted ASU’s “A” on the hill neon green. Determined for revenge, the Sun Devils answered by painting it black in anticipation of their blackout game against the Ducks last Thursday. ASU jumped out to a 7-0 lead but, in typical Oregon fashion, it was 43-7 by halftime. ASU got quite a scare when two defensive linemen left the game with injuries but they don’t appear to be as bad as once thought. … Bad news for its next opponent: UCLA.
3. UCLA The good thing about a bye week is no one has a chance to bad-mouth you or devalue your performance. The other good thing is you get a chance to get your team healthy and enjoy a weekend watching college football on your couch (something I do every weekend). The bad news is … well, there isn’t any. UCLA’s week off couldn’t have come at a better time. The Bruins seem to have regressed since the season started, an assumption they’ll try to buck in Tempe on Saturday.
4. Arizona First-year coach Rich Rodriguez’s offense is supposed to look like a basketball fast break. Mission accomplished on Saturday as the Arizona Wildcats stuck it to the Washington Huskies 52-17 at home in Tucson. It’s hard to believe, but Washington and Arizona are both 1-3 in conference play after Saturday’s game. Both teams have shown the propensity to be good, but they’ve also flopped at key junctures of their respective seasons. U of A can certainly build on 533 yards of total offense.
5. Utah Anyone who watched Oregon State’s 21-7 win over Utah on Saturday would tell you that Oregon State didn’t necessarily win the game, Utah lost it. The Utes coughed the ball up twice inside their own red zone and again on third-and-goal from the five when they were threatening to tie the game in the third quarter. Utah’s defense held Oregon State to just 52 yards rushing but the short fields didn’t help. Regardless, the Utes open conference play at 0-4 for the second straight season.
6. Colorado Technically, Colorado has a better conference record than Utah by way of its only win of the season, a 35-34 thriller over Washington State last month. But the Buffs are flat-out bad. They have been outscored 143-37 in their last three losses and things don’t appear to be looking up. On the heels of a blowout loss to USC downtown, Colorado heads to Eugene to take on No. 2 Oregon on Saturday. We may very well see a scoreboard malfunction before game’s end.
NORTH
1. Oregon (No. 2) Any doubts that Oregon was the best team in the conference were put to bed last Thursday when they throttled Arizona State 43-21 on the road. Many, including me, figured the Sun Devils would be the Ducks’ toughest test so far this season, and yet Oregon’s starters were safely resting on the sideline in the second half. Colorado’s visit on Saturday is the free square in Pac-12 bingo before the Ducks will fly south to play USC in two weeks.
2. Oregon State (No. 7) Oregon State is certainly the third-best team in the conference but I’m still not sure it’s the seventh-best team in the country. The Beavers certainly didn’t look like it in an ugly 21-7 win over Utah on Saturday. If anything, Oregon State is benefiting by a bottom-heavy schedule. Its best win this season came against UCLA nearly a month ago. The Beavers still have to play Arizona State, Oregon and Stanford. Luckily for them, only one of those games (Stanford) comes on the road.
3. Stanford (No. 19) There was nothing big about this year’s “Big Game,” the annual rivalry game between Stanford and California. Stanford won easily 21-3 in Berkeley. This year is a bit of an anomaly because Cal is so bad but the stakes for the big game need to be higher. The Pac-12 Conference needs to come to its senses and prioritize scheduling traditional rivalry games where they’ve traditionally been scheduled, at the end of the season. Similarly, USC is the penultimate opponent on UCLA’s schedule this season.
4. Washington Since knocking off Stanford a month ago, Steve Sarkisian’s Washington team has lost three straight games by a combined 76 points. Something isn’t clicking on defense for the Huskies, but after a meeting with Oregon State at home this weekend, things get much easier for Washington. The Huskies play the four worst teams in the conference (Cal, Utah, Colorado and Washington State) to close the season. They’ll have to win three of their final five games to go bowling.
5. California If Cal fans were hoping for a reason to reheat the ever-warming hot seat on which coach Jeff Tedford currently sits, they found it in the form of a 21-3 loss to Stanford. Let the coach search begin. This week, Cal travels to Salt Lake City this weekend for a “blackout” tilt with Utah. The Golden Bears will likely have to knock off Oregon or Oregon State ““ their final two games of the season ““ if they want to go bowling. Remember the last time a barely bowl-eligible team played in the postseason without a head coach? Of course you don’t.
6. Washington State Like UCLA, Washington State also had the week off. Unlike UCLA, Washington State needs to get back on the field as soon as possible if it wants to bust a four-game losing streak. The Cougars aren’t likely to find such luck this weekend when they travel to Palo Alto to take on Stanford. First-year coach Mike Leach can’t reinvent the wheel in a year, but you have to wonder whether his style of offense can work in Pullman, at least with former coach Paul Wulff’s players. It could be a couple of years before Wazzu is a winner.