2007 Pac 10 football thread

[bernie]

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And all teams, especially in college sports, have moronic or ill-mannered fans. It comes with the territory.

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True. And the Huskies have their share of idiots. However, it is one thing to be that way towards the other team, but another to do it while the flag is being raised. That was a first for me. It also wasn't just a few people, but seemingly a good portion of the visitors section.

I will say again, that Ohio St fans were (noticeably)great when they came.

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[bernie]

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I just wanted to say one thing. When the game was tied going into the 4th, I was trying to anticipate the reaction if we lost. I figured all the forum hacks would go on about how our defense sucked and we totally blew the game.


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Those hacks wouldn't realize that the Ducks and UW have a great rivalry and Husky stadium isn't an easy place for Oregon to play. On top of that, the Ducks hadn't been to Husky stadium in awhile. It would've been nice to welcome them back with a loss. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

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Once Dixon is gone after this year (and like Stewart too), we're going to really struggle for a year or two. I'm not looking forward to playing UW at all.

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Not sure who's coming in to replace Dixon, but Crenshaw looked real good, though not as strong as Stewart. Of course, our tackling absolutely sucked, but there was so much misdirection going on that it didn't really matter.

OSU also benefitted from us completely flubbing the 3rd quarter. A bud and I joked that during the duck game, we got the 3rd quarter out of the way early in the 1st. When it was 14-0 we just kinda looked at eachother like, oh, how wonderful. Given how the 1st quarter went, with the ducks getting about 200 yards offense, we were happy to hold them to under 700 for the whole game. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Belotti may have a point that you guys match up very well, but that offense still ran exceptionally well.

We also envy your long snapper/center. Our center sucks. If you noticed, on most shotguns Locker is picking up the ball off his shoes. If I were the coach I'd have him long snapping all day long aiming at a tire 30 yards away until his arm fell off. Then he'd switch arms. [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

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[BobJoeJim]

Crenshaw does have me excited for the future, and of course Jeremiah Johnson definitely won't be leaving early now, so we should have a good 1-2 punch at RB again next year. The heir apparent to Dixon is Costa, who's supposed to be real good, but hasn't really gotten much chance to show it. No doubt he'll be a drop off from what Dixon is doing right now, which is just insanely good, but he might be pretty good...

Now isn't the time to talk about next year though, with a top five ranking and home games upcoming against the #7 and #8 teams in the next two weeks [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Semtex]

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Jesus the Pac10 is terrifying. i haven't followed all of the SEC's games but doesn't the Pac look like the scariest conference in college football up and down?

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No.

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Yep.

b

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"least amount of variance from top to bottom" =/= "scariest from top to bottom"

DUCY?

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not really

[CardSharpCook]

uh, well, a class of retarded kids could all score btwn 0-10 on the same test that a gifted class scored 90-100 on. Very little variance inside either classroom, but the gifted class is much "scarier".

The jury is still out on both the Pac10 and the SEC, imo. Just like every year, not enough meaningful OOC games are played to get a good feeling on overall conference strength. Bowl season can add 4-5 somewhat meaningful data points though.

[Gregatron]

I think it's debatable whether the SEC or the Pac10 has more intraconference variance. Ole Miss is the bottom of the barrel and they almost knocked off Florida, while Stanford beats USC. Vanderbilt knocks off USCar, while UCLA takes down UCB.

As for which is the better conference... It's not possible to definitely tell yet IMO. I will say both are clearly superior to the Big East.

[bernie]

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Just like every year, not enough meaningful OOC games are played to get a good feeling on overall conference strength.

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I won't hold my breath waiting for the SEC to schedule any meaningful OOC(especially away) games. Though I'll still give some credit to Tenn.

b

[Semtex]

The biggest weekend for the Pac 10 so far this year.

AZ (1-4) @ UW (0-4):
Washington has won 16 of the last 23 in this contest I don't see them losing tomorrow. Their record does not give credit to how good this team is. They have had an absolutely brutal schedule so far playing ranked teams five of the last six weeks (and UCLA is no slouch either). They should be looking to finally get a win after a five game losing skid. Arizona is poorly coached and overall is a pretty hapless team. I don't think it will be close especially at Husky stadium.


USC (3-1) @ ORE (3-1):
The game of the week. USC looks revitalized after last weeks butt-whooping of ND while Oregon's offense looks like the scariest in the country. Why I haven't heard Dennis Dixon's name in the Heisman talks is a mystery.

USC had been playing without 3 starters on the offensive line and a starting defensive end. Three out of four of those guys are questionable for tomorrow so that could be an issue. On the Oregon side Colvin and Johnson are out for the season, and while this wasn't an issue against UW, USC's defense is much better.

There has been talk of Sanchez being questionable because he has never played a game of this magnitude but I don't think it will be an issue. USC has the number two rush offense in the Pac 10 (behind Oregon), while Oregon's rush defense is in the bottom half of the Pac. As long as USC establishes the run a lot of the pressure should be taken off of Sanchez's shoulders. Oregon's pass defense is also at the bottom of the Pac so I'm not seeing Sanchez having a tough day.

All this is dependent on whether USC's backups can hold it down on the O-line, which was a major problem against UW, Stanford and AZ. I believe this is going to be the key for this game. If the O-line plays well USC wins because they stop Oregon more times than Oregon can stop them. If not Oregon wins.


Stanford (2-3) @ Oregon St (2-2)
OSU is coming off a bye after their upset of Cal, while Stanford is coming off a squeaker win against AZ last week. Not really interested in this game. OSU won 30-7 last year in Palo Alto I imagine the result will be mostly the same at Reser Stadium.


UCLA (4-0) @ WSU (0-4)
UCLA, fired up after the upset last week, creams an inept WSU who lost by 28 to Arizona and got absolutely obliterated by Oregon two weeks ago. All the bye weeks in the world wouldn't be enough for this team to fix its problems


Cal (2-2) @ ASU (4-0)
The #2 game of the week. ASU could have been the number three team in the country if Morgan could have handled that onside last night. The real question is if this means anything. Except for a narrow victory at bottom of the Pac WSU, they have been blowing teams out, but the hardest team they have played so far is either OSU or Colorado. Cal is reeling from two straight tough losses and the question is will they be able to recover from this.

I don't really see how Cal can win, unless this ASU team is an absolute complete fluke. Before last week's UCLA game I questioned whether either Longshore or Riley could handle starting, and Longshore really didn't, throwing 3 picks including the dagger at the end. They only managed 67 yards of rushing, and if they can't figure out how to run against ASU, who's rush D is almost as good as UCLA, they are going to get obliterated by ASU's secondary, which has been playing amazingly well. ASU has a Pac 10 leading 12 INTs this year, and their Pass D is number two only to USC in terms of yards allowed. ASU wins this game unless Cal has managed to fix all those problems since last week.

[Jeremy517]

Alex Brink holding all of WSU's records makes baby Jesus cry. All of those great Cougar QBs are going to be passed by a guy who is going to lead us to a 2-10 record for the season and 14-26 for his career. Awesome.

[BobJoeJim]

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USC (3-1) @ ORE (3-1):
The game of the week. USC looks revitalized after last weeks butt-whooping of ND while Oregon's offense looks like the scariest in the country. Why I haven't heard Dennis Dixon's name in the Heisman talks is a mystery.

USC had been playing without 3 starters on the offensive line and a starting defensive end. Three out of four of those guys are questionable for tomorrow so that could be an issue. On the Oregon side Colvin and Johnson are out for the season, and while this wasn't an issue against UW, USC's defense is much better.

There has been talk of Sanchez being questionable because he has never played a game of this magnitude but I don't think it will be an issue. USC has the number two rush offense in the Pac 10 (behind Oregon), while Oregon's rush defense is in the bottom half of the Pac. As long as USC establishes the run a lot of the pressure should be taken off of Sanchez's shoulders. Oregon's pass defense is also at the bottom of the Pac so I'm not seeing Sanchez having a tough day.

All this is dependent on whether USC's backups can hold it down on the O-line, which was a major problem against UW, Stanford and AZ. I believe this is going to be the key for this game. If the O-line plays well USC wins because they stop Oregon more times than Oregon can stop them. If not Oregon wins.

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Oregon's pass defense is #3 in the Pac Ten, not at the bottom. At least, their pass efficiency D is, I presume you were talking about raw passing yardage but that's ridiculously inflated by teams trying to play catch-up in blowouts. It is hard to throw the ball effectively against Oregon this year.