What an insane weekend for college football. First Louisville loses on Thursday to freaking Rutgers, then four more top 15 teams lost on Saturday. Somehow Texas lost to Kansas State, Auburn lost to Georgia and Cal lost to Arizona of all teams. Tennessee also lost, but it was to Arkansas so it can’t be considered it an upset. Florida would have lost if they didn’t block three(!) kicks against the other USC, but they squeaked out the victory and let USC catch up to them in the polls. I did clear up the BCS picture a little bit and likely gave USC the inside track to the title game against the OSU-UM winner.
Arizona 24, Cal 20
Well now it looks like the Cats may go bowling. After a disappointing start, Arizona has really turned it around in the last two weeks. As our esteemed Commander in Chief would say “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me, you cant get fooled again” Or something like that. Anywho, it looked like last week was an aberration, but it turned into a trend. Nate Longshore had a terrible game after lighting up UCLA last week, but DeSean Jackson kept the Bears in the game with two first half touchdowns. After watching Nick Folk line a punt right to Jackson, I had a feeling he would return it for a TD, and after he made a final move on Folk, it was a TD. He now has four punt returns for TDs this season and five in his career, both of which are Pac-10 records. But the real story was Longshore and his turnovers. With three picks, Longshore gave the game to Arizona, including one that was returned for a score by Antoine Cason. That gave the Wildcats their first lead and after Longshore’s third and final pick with 1:32 left, Arizona claimed victory. The Arizona offense was pretty blah, getting outgained by about 100 yards and averaging less than 4 yards a play. But they didn’t turn the ball over once, so the +3 differential was what decided the game. The Bears just kissed their national championship status goodbye.
MVP: DeSean Jackson – 6 receptions for 131 yards and a TD, 3 punt returns for 128 yards and a TD
Stanford 20, Washington 3
That whole picking the favorite in every game thing really didn’t work for me this week. In fairness, I don’t think anyone picked the Cardinal to win this game. Unfortunately, this probably moves Stanford out of ESPN’s bottom ten this week, or least way down the list from their #2 perch. But we must give the Husky QBs credit for one of the worst performances ever bestowed upon the Pac-10. Carl Bonnell threw up an amazing line of 10/35 for 118 yards and one INT, for a magnificent rating of 51.17. Ty finally decided that enough was enough and brought in Johnny DuRocher to test his hand. Somehow, he was even worse than Bonnell. DuRocher ended the night 1/9 for 4 yards and 2 INTs, which is a rating of -29.6. I didn’t even know it was possible to have a negative passer rating, but DuRocher let us all know that it is. TC Ostrander actually had a decent game for Stanford, his best of the season with 206 yards and his first TD pass of the season. But it was the Cardinal D that won the game (I think that’s an oxymoron), limiting the Huskies to 161 yards of offense and forcing three turnovers. Stanford gets OSU this week, will a winning streak be in order for Walt Harris? Wtf is going on at the bottom of the Pac-10?
MVP (for Stanford): UW’s Johnny DuRocher – 1/9 for 4 yards and 2 INTs
UCLA 25, Oregon State 7
Patrick Cowan may have saved his starting job on Saturday. With a pair of TD passes in the second half, Cowan led the Bruins to victory over the Beavers in the Rose Bowl. Matt Moore’s second homecoming was again not what he was hoping for, as he didn’t throw a TD pass and the Beaver’s only generated 259 yards of offense. The Bruin D also forced four fumbles and limited Yvenson Bernard and Sammie Stroughter to their worst combined game of the season. UCLA made sure to capitalize on the OSU turnovers and they moved themselves back into the bowl game mix.
MVP: Marcus Everett – 3 receptions for 64 yards and both UCLA TDs
Arizona State 47, Washington State 14
Put a fork in the Cougars. After whipping the Ducks and Bruins into shape a few weeks ago, WSU didn’t stand a chance against either Arizona school. With 568 yards of offense, the Sun Devils came out running on all cylinders and never let the Cougs get into this game. Rudy Carpenter had his best game since demolishing Nevada in the season’s second week, with 3 TDs and 327 yards passing. ASU also had an astounding 50 carries in this game on their way to 29 first downs. Meanwhile, Alex Brink led WSU to an awe-inspiring 190 yards of total offense, albeit without his top two receivers. Dwight Tardy can be blamed for some of that as he managed only 29 yards on his 11 carries. Of course when you’re down 30-7 at halftime, chances are you won’t be running much the rest of the game. Also, put ASU freshman CB/WR Grant Crunkleton on your All-Name team. I’m not sure how he has time to play football. Shouldn’t he be touring with Lil Jon?
MVP: Rudy Carpenter – 14 of 23 for 327 yards and 3 TDs
USC 35, Oregon 10
Ok, its time for the Pac-10 to fire all their referees. The UO/OU calls were terrible, UW lost their chance at beating USC because of you, and now you have made a complete mockery of refereeing and instant replay with your incredible call in the third quarter when you re-reversed a TD call that you had just reversed. Oregon actually challenged your reversal after replay, and you actually went back and changed your call. Incredible!! If
that TD had actually mattered, I don’t know what people would be saying today. But here’s what I say: Sitting in the stands watching you waste about 20 minutes of my life trying to figure out if your own reversal, which you deemed correct mere nanoseconds ago, was in fact correct was one of the stupidest moments I have ever witnessed, let alone experienced myself, in Pac-10 history. You Pac-10 refs are just plain bad, and now
you’re on notice!
It was homecoming for USC on Saturday, and they dispatched the Ducks in style. The box score doesn’t show it, as Oregon gained more yards and won the turnover battle, but the Ducks were never in this one. The Duck running game never got off the ground and while Dennis Dixon and Brady Leaf put up more yards than JD Booty, they only led the Ducks to two scoring drives. Lawrence Jackson finally decided to show up, in the box scores at least, as he garnered his first three sacks of the season on Saturday night. But the big story for
USC was the breakout of Chauncey Washington. After watching Emmanuel Moody go down with an injury early, Washington took the game into his hands. With 119 yards and 3 TDs on his 15 carries, Chauncey literally carried the Trojans to victory. The USC defense has to be happy with its performance, letting the Ducks march from 20 to 20 is irrelevant when you never let them put points on the board. This win, coupled with all those incredible losses, pushed the Trojans all the way back to #3 in the BCS, meaning that unless OSU and UM play a really tight game, the voters will likely put the Trojans at #2 if they win the rest of their games. Add to that the fact that they play two very good teams in Cal and Notre Dame, plus a solid UCLA team, the computers will still like the Trojans. Next week decides the Ro
se Bowl and it could decide the national championship game as well.
MVP: The Referees – I’m pretty sure that if the game wasn’t televised, no one would believe that the reversal of an instant replay reversal actually happened.
The Pac-10 Apostle’s Disciple of the Week
Congratulations Mr. Cason, you’re the Disciple of the Week.
1 comment:
I'm with you, I was at the colesium on Sat evening and that debacle of officiating was a freakin joke.
The P10 does not have any competency in officiating, they should just dissolve the department immediately and outsource all aspects of officiating from the on field refs, the replay booth guys and the official management at the conference level and fire them all and hire someone else to run the show.
Doesn't the NCAA even care that the officials are ruining the P10 FB as we know it.
rant over
Post a Comment