The Weekly Rehash

Whew, the first Saturday with a full slate of conference games. We saw a couple of offensive shows and a couple of disappointing performances.

Oregon put on one of those offensive shows. Dennis Dixon was almost perfect and the Sun Devils couldn’t stop anyone that the Ducks gave the ball to. Jonathan Stewart and Jeremiah Johnson both averaged more than 11 yards per carry. Jaison Williams hauled in 10 passes including two touchdowns. All told, Oregon had 574 yards of total offense. I could keep harping on how good Oregon looked, but it really was not that surprising. What was surprising was the total lack of effort coming from Arizona State. Ryan Torain looks like the real deal, but even his second consecutive impressive performance couldn’t buoy the disaster that is Rudy Carpenter. Rudy completed a mere 6 of 19 passes for only 33 yards, one of the worst performances the Pac-10 has seen from a quarterback in recent memory. Dirk Koetter’s decision to boot Sam Keller looks worse each and every week, though I don’t think even Keller himself wished that Carpenter would be this bad as the starting QB. But it isn’t just Carpenter. The defense had all of one sack vs Oregon and Cal, along with giving up nearly 1000 yards of total offense to them. ASU has given up 11 sacks in their last two games and only Torain and Terry Richardson seem to be showing up each week. Put a fork in Koetter, this is his last season in Tempe.

Cal was the other team that showed off their offense. The Bears absolutely demolished Oregon State. They were firing on all cylinders the entire game and Nate Longshore continued his assault on opposing defenses. But their defense showed up too, holding Yvenson Bernard to 74 rushing yards and recording four sacks. Matt Moore was his usual unspectacular self, and OSU couldn’t keep up with Cal. Looks like the Oregon-Cal game this weekend is going to be one hell of a matchup.

Cougar fans were happy to see that their team didn’t get blown out of the water by the Trojans on Saturday. USC was pretty average looking and they actually got outgained (!) by Washington State. Both Brink and Booty looked pretty good, and the USC offense is slowly developing, though Chauncey Washington continues to get more carries than he deserves. Emmanuel Moody is averaging more than seven yards per carry, and yet he can’t even get ten carries in a game? What is up with that, Pete? Michael Bumpus had a great game for the Cougs and the announcers on TBS thought he was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Steve Smith was really the star of the game. He had 186 receiving yards and pulled in two touchdowns, so all the talk of Turner and McFoy filling in for Jarrett was pointless, as it was the guy who was already starting that filled in for DJ. Hopefully for USC it means that Booty will have less tunnel vision for Jarrett and start spreading the ball around a little more. Also, Desmond Reed should stop returning punts. The guy is explosive with the ball in his hands, but he muffs punts like Stanford gives up points.

Speaking of Stanford, what happened to the Bruins? Yeah they pitched a shutout, but only two of their four touchdowns came from the offense. Remember that Stanford has one of the worst defenses planet earth has ever seen, yet UCLA couldn’t even break the 200 yard rushing mark. Guess my premonition of Chris Markey’s career day didn’t quite materialize like I thought. He didn’t break the century mark or score a touchdown. So even though Southpaw Jesus threw a pair of interceptions and hasn’t found a favorite target, at least their defense came to play. Stanford had their worst game of the season, which is saying something considering how dreadful they have been. So at least UCLA can hang their hats on that until they have to visit Oregon and Notre Dame.

Arizona continued their disappointing season by losing at home to the Huskies. Coach Stoops isn’t very happy about it either. Willie Tuitama had his first 300 yard passing game of the season, but the Wildcats were held to -7 rushing yards by the UW defense. The Huskies had 154 yards on the ground and Isaiah Stanback had his best passing game of the season as well. Washington is starting to round into form and they are much better than almost everyone expected them to be. This weekend is their big test of the season as they have to go to the Coliseum to face the Trojans. And after a disappointing game against the Cougars, USC is likely to be coming at the Huskies pretty hard.

USC, Oregon and Cal are now all in Jeff Sagarin’s top ten, and the Pac-10 is the only conference that places more than two teams. USC is the overall number one team and the Pac-10 is also ranked as the best conference. Take that SEC! Lets take a look at the Pac-10 power rankings this week:

1.	Cal	Longshore and Lynch look unstoppable
2.	Oregon	Dennis Dixon is creeping into Heisman contention
3.	USC	Escaped Pullman with a win, won't stay at #3 long if they keep playing like that
4.	Washington	Stanback continues to shoulder the load in Seattle
5.	Washington State	Gave USC everything they could handle
6.	UCLA	Beat Stanford, but their offense looks lost
7.	Oregon State	Alexis Serna is the lone bright spot on the disappointing Beavers
8.	Arizona State	The downward spiral continues, and their next game is against USC
9.	Arizona	Weren't they supposed to improve this season?
10.	Stanford	Defense was a little bit better, but their offense was downright offensive