Pac 10 Power Poll Week Two

Dominant offensive performances were seen all around the conference this week but the big story has to be the triumphant return of Rick Neuheisal and Norm Chow to Los Angeles and the win they were able to pull out of a hat versus Tennessee on national TV this Labor Day. I didn’t watch much of the first half and really didn’t miss anything other than a terrible offensive performance by both team but especially UCLA’s QB Kevin Craft. Chow and Neuheisal deserve credit for staying with the kid after 4 first half picks. Somehow, due to a combination of better accuracy and Tennesse dropping back in a deep zone against a weak armed QB UCLA was able to throw drives together while on defense get some big league run stuffing from their very solid up the middle defense. UCLA always seems to play OOC teams tough and this game was just another example of that. The Bruins will likely still face major struggles this year they should end of making a bowl which before the Tennessee game was not a likelihood in my book. In other news USC is good, really good and have the fortune of playing Oregon, Ohio State, ASU and Cal all in the Coliseum. Does anyone see a loss on that schedule except possible against U of A on 10/25? Give Stanford credit for maximizing their talent and taking advantage of some dumb mistakes by Oregon State but clearly the less talented team won last Thursday. This was a bad loss for the Beavers, who pending a miracle are looking at a 1-3 start. I am not sure really what to take out of the Oregon/Washington game other than that Washington is really bad, Oregon should be able to start out 5-0 and win at least 8 games but the second half of the schedule is dicey. As for Washington I’ve heard rumors that the guy they have in their cross-hairs for taking over for the dead man walking Willingham regime is Chip Kelly. Kelly going to UW would be beyond a coup – it removes your rivals second most important asset (after Uncle Phil) while at the same time brings in a dynamic offensive mind who would likely work wonders year one with Jake Locker. Oregon cannot let this happen but it is going to be very hard for them to keep Chip Kelly from taking a head coaching job. If Oregon were to lose him it would better to lose him to a non-Pac 10 school. Outside of WSU the rest of the conference played fairly well other than Nate Longshore who I think we can officially put the fork in to. From Heisman candidate on the #2 in the country to not starting in less than a year, Cal wins by 21 if he doesn’t play.
1. USC (1) – Looked truly dominant, they could be back to the form of the 2004 team. Sanchez showed no rust and looked much better than last year and the Trojans get an extra week for Ohio State who will have a banged up Beanie Wells. I’d eat my hat if this team doesn’t play for the BCS championship even with 1 loss.
2. ASU (2) – I’d move them down but I had them 2 last week and from what I read pulled almost everyone for the second half of the NAU game and treated it like a scrimmage. Stanford will provide them a nice chance to get in a game versus a quality opponent before Georgia comes to town but at the same time this game has “trap game” written all over it. Interesting that Stanford will have played two Pac 10 games already while most of the league has played zero.
3. UO (3) – Who needs Dennis Dixon? Just kidding but clearly QB is not as big as a worry for Oregon as I had thought. I think by mid-season Jeremiah Masoli will be playing the majority of snaps as he better fits the scheme. Utah State will be treated as a scrimmage by the Ducks, I’d expect Roper won’t play in the second half nor will Jeremiah Johnson.
4. Cal (4) – They beat a similar team to themselves in a rapidly improving Michigan State. Game would have been closer if Longshore hadn’t played. I still think this team has the second best talent in the league but they need play some better defense it appears. No Pac-10 road game is easy but I look for a comfortable win in Pullman this weekend.
5. UCLA (9) – The Tennessee win was kind of a perfect storm scenario and they Bruins shouldn’t be expecting to get that kind of performance every week against Top 20 teams, at the same time the Bruins do have the potential to go bowling this year and I didn’t think that last week.
6. UA (6) – Idaho stinks but beating anyone 70-0 is impressive. They should have no issues versus Toledo this week.
7. OSU (5) – Yeah they lost to Stanford but if they can fix their issues on the front seven with run defense and if Moevao can have a little better ball security they will be in the mix for a top 5 Pac-10 finish. Playing at Penn State might be a bit too much too ask at this point for a young team.
8. LSJU (8) – Very nice win versus OSU, Jim Harbaugh has done a good job of getting everything he can out of his players but depth and athleticism are clearly lacking. Going in to Tempe and looking for a win is probably too much to ask at this point. The schedule makers did Stanford no favors with only 5 home games this year.
9. WSU (10) – The only reason I have them 9th is that they have an easier schedule than Washington and have a better chance of having their QB survive the season. They should be able to give Cal a game for a half but I don’t see an upset occurring.
10. UW (7) – The Huskies are in major trouble. They have a schedule set up like they are defending national champs not a below average Pac-10 team. They need to get better protection for Locker who will face long odds in lasting the season, the Dawgs could beat BYU but will face tough odds against a physical team needing a BCS conference road win to make their case for a BCS berth if they were to go 12-0.

Pac 10 Season Review

Due to some life issues I haven’t been able to update my blog for some weeks, and those weeks turned out to be some of the most shocking, and as an Oregon fan depressing, in my time of viewing college football which dates back to the early 1980's. When I last posted the Oregon Ducks were riding high as #2 in the country and Dennis Dixon was the clear front runner for the Heisman. Now Oregon has lost 3 in a row, were knocked out of the top 25, shut out for the first time since 1985 and became the first home team to lose the Civil War since 1993! To think that I was actually worried about finding a flight and hotel to New Orleans seems almost comical now. When I look back on 2007 and all that happened I will always remember how close that Oregon came. For the first time in their history I think they can argue that had Dennis Dixon not been hurt (and the injuries to Brian Paysinger, Cameron Colvin, Jeremiah Johnson and Brady Leaf were all very painful to the Oregon cause as well) Oregon had the best team in the country. Everything changed on that dropped touchdown by Derrick Jones for Oregon. I believe the players, especially Dennis Dixon have shown an immense amount of heart, this coming from a program that has been criticized for lacking heart since the departure of Jeff Tedford and Joey Harrington. In other news the Rose Bowl, by choosing Illinois over say a Georgia team, caused the ASU Sun Devils to not be invited to a BCS game. The Pac 10 had looked like a lock for 2 BCS bids and then ended up finding themselves with only one. The Trojans should eviscerate Illinois while ASU faces a fairly subpar Texas game in the Holiday Bowl in a game I would not be surprised to see ASU come out quite flat in. The last three weeks has seen the announcement that two of the Pac 10 coaches will not be returning next season in Bill Doba and Karl Dorrell. Neither of these are shocks while in news that may have seemed surprising 6 weeks ago Ty Willingham and Mike Stoops will be back with Washington and Arizona next season. All that awaits this year is bowl season and you could make the argument that every school that qualified for a bowl has to be a bit disappointed at where they ended up.

Awards:
Offensive POY: Dennis Dixon ,Oregon
Defensive POY: Sedrick Ellis, USC
Coach of the Year: Dennis Erickson, ASU
Freshman of the Year: Jahvid Best, Cal
Coaching hot seat rakings
1. Bill Doba – already fired
2. Karl Dorrell – already fired
3. Ty Willingham – Needs to go to a bowl in 2008
4. Mike Stoops – Ditto, with a senior QB no excuse not to
5. Mike Bellotti – Will not leave unless it is on his terms or if he did something to anger Knight, has lost a lot of the fan base over poor clock management, the Dixon injury and stupid comments in the press
6. Mike Riley – Back to back great years but the fans will always prefer Erickson
7. Jeff Tedford – I could only see him leaving on his own terms but losing 6 of 7 to end the year and losing to Stanford is just plain bad
8. Jim Harbaugh – He did something that no other team has accomplished since the 02 WSU Cougars, beat Cal and USC in the same season
9. Dennis Erickson – Riding high in Tempe we shall see how long he lasts there
10. Pete Carroll – The only thing that will make him leave is an amazing NFL offer or the Reggie Bush scandal blowing up big time

Bowl predictions

USC over Illinois
Texas over ASU
South Florida over Oregon
BYU over UCLA
Oregon State over Maryland
Air Force over Cal
LSU over Ohio State

I will get my first chance to see Oregon play live in basketball in 2 years tomorrow as I will be at the Pape Jam at the Rose Garden tomorrow.

Pac 10 Power Poll and Week Eight Review

The week’s top story has to be the return of a viable quarterback to the UCLA Bruins and how this lead to Cal going from thinking they were the #1 team in the nation to being 3 games (considering that UCLA would own the tie-breaker due to their win over Cal) behind UCLA for the race for the Rose Bowl. Cal is all but dead in the water unless they can win out, get some luck and have UCLA only win 2 or less games this year. Cal could easily find themselves playing in the Fort Worth or Vegas Bowl which has to be one of the larger falls from grace we have seen nationally in the last few years. Amazingly, UCLA, who has suffered embarrassing losses to winless teams, is atop the Pac 10 with a 4-0 conference record. If Patrick Cowan can stay healthy they can beat anyone in the conference, with Bethel-Thompson at QB they can’t beat anyone. The Dawgs must be yearning for the days of Steve Emtman after surrendering over 450 yards rushing to Oregon. If you went back in time and told a Husky fan in 1991 that an Oregon Duck team lead by a running back from the State of Washington would lead an attack that set the Oregon school rushing record on Husky Stadium soil they would likely have you committed. Times do change, 1991 seems like ancient history, no internet, no cell phones or DVD or spread shotgun spread offenses for that matter . In other new Stanford won their second road game of the conference schedule but still hasn’t beaten anyone outside of San Jose State on their own field. Finally it appears that USC has gotten past their injury issues after wood-shedding Notre Dame in South Bend and now will face Oregon in the first match-up between two Top 10 (coaches poll not BCS) teams in the history of Autzen Stadium.

1. UO (1) – The bad news first, Oregon had some breakdowns in coverage that allowed Jake Locker to show he can throw the ball down the field and keep pace with the Ducks for 3 quarters. The good news is that Oregon ran for 456 yards, completely dominated the line of scrimmage offensively in a matter that has not been seen in Eugene in well forever. Had Oregon been able to play USC two weeks ago I think they would have beaten the Trojans by 14, but now that USC has had time to heal the game will be much closer and I would make the Trojans a small favorite. Oregon won’t be able to run laterally well against the speed that the Trojans posses so they will need to play smash-mouth football and win it between the tackles. Dennis Dixon obviously must avoid the picks and the Ducks can’t afford to let Stefon Johnson or Joe McKnight break long runs. Should be an epic, glad to have a seat for it!
2. ASU (2) – ASU was on bye week, which is a good thing because they will finally start to play some real teams. We well find out now if ASU is a true contender or whether they were beating up on creampuffs since they face Cal, Oregon, UCLA and USC in the next month. The Devils could go from being #4 in the BCS to out of the Top 25 in a short amount of time. Cal is sputtering but has never lost 3 games in a row under Jeff Tedford, this should be the second best game of the day but could get widely ignored with the national and conference attention on the game in Eugene.
3. USC (4) – Getting healthy at the right time. My opinion is that Matt Sanchez gives them a better chance at winning against Oregon than John David Booty. The o-line and defense are as healthy as they have been this year so Oregon could be in for a rude awakening.
4. UCLA (9) - I had UCLA 9th last week because the injury status of Patrick Cowan was up in the air, now that they have a functional quarterback again they are fully capable of being the Top 10 team that they have the personnel to be. They face a reeling WSU team but I would consider this one to be on major upset watch, especially with the Cougars having two weeks to prepare.
5. OSU (5) – On bye week last week after the big win in Berkeley. The Beavs got bad news with the loss of Tavika Thompson by decree from the NCAA. The reason for his eligibility being revoked is not yet known but we should stay on the lookout for further news. The Beavs should be able to end Stanford’s two game conference winning streak as the Cardinal shouldn’t be over looked anymore by anyone.
6. Cal (3) – This is where Cal shows whether they can rally and play themselves back in to the top of the Pac 10 and compete for a possible BCS at large bid or whether the wheels fall completely off. They no longer control their own destiny for the Rose Bowl but still will have a major effect on who ends up playing in it. They are more tested than ASU but need to do a better job running the ball to keep teams from teeing off on Nate Longshore (no speedster to begin with) who has the mobility of Bernie Kosar right now.
7. Stanford (7) – The Trees won another Pac 10 road game and certainly deserve much credit for that but unless they can stretch that streak to 3 games I don’t see them getting bowl eligible this season. Stanford under Jim Harbaugh is playing much smarter and once they increase their talent pool should be able to compete for a lower tier bowl every year as long as Harbaugh is in the fold. His enthusiasm is changing the culture in Palo Alto which will be a good thing with the gem of a stadium they have.
8. UW (8) – The Huskies played very hard for 3+ quarters but as has been typical in their now 5 game losing streak the Dawgs don’t have the conditioning or talent to stay with good teams for 60 minutes. Jake Locker broke out the long ball with some great success versus Oregon but the run defense is beyond atrocious. I couldn’t think of a better team for them to play right now than Arizona however and the Dawgs could further drive a steak in to the chances of Mike Stoops remaining at Arizona.
9. UA (6) – Losing to Stanford at home is always a huge letdown. Will they be the team that end Washington’s long losing streak? The decimated Husky front seven should be pretty vulnerable to a steady diet of runs.
10. WSU (10) - Just playing for pride now, but still have a very dangerous offense at home at least. They have a great shot at beating UCLA.

Tourney Time

Some thoughts on the 2006-2007 Oregon Ducks, the NCAA tournament and a sprinkling of randomness.

I’ve never been one to claim that Ernie Kent is the best thing since sliced bread. I’ve been continually frustrated with his inability to recruit a decent big man, his failures in close games and his, if you believe the rumors, hypocritical personal life while he claims the moral superiority of being a “good Christian” (not that this is anything new from what we have from men in positions of power). However, I think Ernie deserves a boat load of credit for this year’s run, I think the man took some personal inventory, took some major risks like signing Tajuan Porter and going to a small-ball line, didn’t play the blame game (paging Mike Bellotti you have a call on line 1) as much and became more human in the process to his players. This had to have rubbed off on the players a bit. The victories in the tournament may not have been as impressive as the 2002 run however, the talent level on this team is not at the same level and Oregon gave Florida a better game in 2007 than they gave Kansas in 2002. I have thought for well over a year that 2007 would be the end of the Kent era, whether that be from firing (Pat Kilkenny just politically can’t do that right now I think) or Kent leaving on his own to take a “better” job. I don’t think that will happen now. I think he will be here another two years at least but the bar has been raised again and not going back to the NCAA’s in the next two years could mean the Pat’s man Mark Few is brought in.
On another topic I have to mention that I was quite thrilled with the Duck’s run to the Elite 8. The Ducks played 4 very different teams and played all of them with pride, character and brought respect to Oregon from fans across the country. Many Oregon fans were a bit upset with the officials in the Florida game. I can see where they are coming from, on many of the offensive boards the Gators got, (Richard did this at least 3 times) there was contact between the shorter Duck defender and the taller Gator. One could say that the contact was the Gator pushing off, another view, which the officials took it that it was the Oregon player being out of position and forcing the contact. I thought the refs were full of excrement on at least three of these calls but at least they called them the same way every-time and what I most want from a ref is a consistent call. If something is a foul in the first minute it should be a foul in the last minute, that was the case in the game. That Oregon was in a deficit in fouls was not a surprise they were facing a tall and athletic team however the disparity reminded me of the 1995 Western Conference finals where in Game 7 the Sonics had something like a 73-12 disadvantage in foul shots over the course of the game and still almost won the game (this performance as well as the travesty of the final four games of the Mavs-Heat series last year is all the proof I need to have to show that the NBA under David Stern does what they can to influence who wins games, they don’t outright fix games but they sure make sure that refs they select fit the situation they want to see, ie extending series, having the more “marketable” team win, and showing up Mark Cuban). Refs arguably have more impact on basketball than any other major team sport due to the differences in interpretation of fouls and the speed of the action. It seems to me that in virtually every game this tournament the higher seeded team got the benefit of the doubt from the officials. Maybe that is the way it should be, who knows? This tournament was great in-part because the higher seeds advanced but try to tell that to Vanderbilt or Xavier both of who you could say pissed away surefire wins with their own foolish play down but also could argue that had a key call in the final seconds been called accurately would have advanced on to the next round.
Finally a personal note. Emily and I put in an offer to buy a house this week. If all goes well with the inspection we should be able to move in at the end of April. It is much bigger and I will have my own space to do my own thing from time to time which I really need. Our current abode is way to small for 3 people, letting alone two have any space, so this is a great thing.