PAC-12 ROUNDUP Week 6: Best weekend in Pac-12 History?
Photo: Scott Olmos-USA TODAY Sports
A new era of unprecedented parity has arrived in the Pac-12. After only three seasons of evenly shared TV revenue, even the small-time schools of old like Washington State and Arizona have big name coaches and gleaming facilities that rival the likes of USC and Oregon. And the results are already evident on the field.
On Saturday, for the first time ever, road teams went a perfect 5-0 in the Pac including huge upsets in venerable venues like the Rose Bowl, Autzen Stadium and the Coliseum. The 5 in-conference games were decided by a combined 19 points. And, of course, The widest margin of defeat (7), was a win by the largest underdog of the week, 23 point dog, Arizona.
Three conference games into the season, the hegemonic North Division is now lead by the team picked last (Cal), and the highest ranked team in the entire league is the Arizona Wildcats, who did not recieve a single vote in the pre-season AP poll.
BEST WIN: The Arizona Wildcats, who just a few weeks ago were unable to score a single 4th quarter point in a white-knuckle 3 point victory over the UTSA Road Runners (the same UTSA Roadrunners who were dominated at home by New Mexico on Saturday) are now 5-0 and celebrating a win at Autzen Stadium.
PHOTO: Casey Sapio-USA TODAY Sports
The Pac’s two most dynamic offenses traded punches through a low-scoring 1st half of a game that, frankly did not look much different than many Oregon games against good teams through the years.
Oregon took a small lead to the locker room, but the dynamite blast followed by three quick 3rd quarter touchdowns seemed inevitable. And it was, except this time, it was the home team that got buried in the avalanche.
In the decisive 3rd period, Arizona would run wild for over 250 yards of offense and score touchdowns on every possession. Arizona’s offensive line dominated the Ducks’ front seven, opening big holes for Nick Wilson and Terris Jones-Grigsby. The two backs combined for over 200 yards rushing and forced Oregon to bring extra men into the box to stop the run.
The results were deadly. Freshman QB Anu Solomon noticed Oregon sneaking Defensive backs toward the line of scrimmage and threw over the top to criminally open receivers again and again.
The Win puts the Cats at 5-0 and in the drivers’ seat in the Pac-12 South.
For Oregon, the loss raises huge questions about a team that was just a week ago, the Pac-12’s odds-on favorite to make the first CFB Playoff. Nearly half-way through the season, the Ducks are 2nd to last in total defense in the Pac, allowing over 450 yards per game.
It’s worth noting that the Ducks have faced difficult offenses to handle like Michigan State, Washington State and Arizona.
But, by comparison, Stanford has allowed roughly half the yardage of Oregon and their schedule has, arguably, been even tougher. The Cardinal has already faced Notre Dame, USC and Washington. Combine that with the fact that Stanford has beaten the Ducks the last two years, and it looks like the North Division is far from settled.
WORST LOSS
Too many great awful losses this week to just mention one. Let’s count ’em down:
2nd Runner-up: USC The Trojans consoled themselves after their Boston College debacle because it wasn’t conference game, and wouldn’t hurt their goal of winning the Pac-12 South.
The Trojans held the ASU run game to an astounding 5 yards per carry under their season average, ran 30 more plays than the hurry-up Devils and totally controlled the clock. But ASU passed for 500 yards and notched nearly half of it during an insane final 6 minutes.
The Trojans can say they were 2 blown coverages away from beating the Devils, but they have lost 2 of 3 and have to go play a night game against 1st place Arizona. And unlike ASU, the Cats won’t be starting a backup quarterback.
1st Runner-up: WASHINGTON STATE It was a historic night in Pullman for the WSU offense and Quarterback Connor Halliday. The Cougars had an incredible 33 1st downs on 812 yards of offense, and Halliday broke the NCAA single game passing record with 734 yards. The Cougars’ star QB (who may need to be put on a pitch count) attempted 70 passes and didn’t throw a single interception.
The Bear-Raid attack of Cal racked up a ton of points, but couldn’t quite keep pace with the explosive night by the Cougars. But ultimately the game dominated by historic offensive performances would be decided by Special Teams.
Cal’s third phase scored 14 of the team’s 60 points as Jr. WR Trevor Davis had an incredible 198 return yards and two touchdowns In the third quarter alone.
At the end of the game when the Cougars somehow found themselves trailing by one point in the final seconds, the WSU field goal unit failed to convert a kick as short as an extra point and the historic night for Connor Halliday will forever be a sad memory.
Halliday is now over 3000 yards passing on the season, and has only played half his games. Fair to say the passing game is as good as it’s gonna get in Washington State, but the Cougars are still 2-4.
There was a time, when there simply were not many teams who could keep up with Mike Leach’s teams when they were scoring 59 points per game, but the days of 500 yards and 5 TDs from your QB being synonymous with victory are over.
Leach’s has his team doing what they do as well as ever, but until the Cougars add another dimension, it will be hard to take them seriously.
Oct 4, 2014; Pasadena, CA, USA; UCLA Bruins quarterback Brett Hundley (17) is tackled by Utah Utes defensive end Nate Orchard (8) during the second half at the Rose Bowl. Mandatory Credit: Robert Hanashiro-USA TODAY Sports
WINNER: USC was a Hail Mary away from winning, and two blown coverages and a dropped deep ball away from winning by three touchdowns. WSU ruined what should have been a special night for Halliday, but it’s not the first great passing performance of his they’ve blown and it won’t be the last.
UCLA’s loss was far more significant. Their defeat at the hands of Utah completed the descent from Odds-on favorite to win the South in the preseason, to deeply flawed team with virtually no chance of going to Santa Clara.
If that wasn’t bad enough, what was left of the Brett Hundley Heisman Campaign was drowned in a barrage of attacking Utah defenders.
Hundley burned Utah for a couple of long bombs on busted coverages late to keep the game close, but He also threw a pick-six, notched a QBR in the low 40s and was sacked an incredible 10 times.
UCLA’s offensive line and play calling have been criticized this season, but Hundley did a poor job improvising with his running ability and steadfastly refused to throw balls away.
Before the game on Saturday, UCLA was undefeated and coming off a win in their biggest road test of the season at ASU and was firmly in the drivers’ seat in the South. Now they look like the third or 4th best team in the division and still have to play Oregon, Stanford, Arizona and USC.
PLAYER OF THE WEEK:
Honorable mention to Halliday for his record setting performance, Jalen Strong for his 202 yard receiving yards at USC and Trevor Davis’ 4 total TDs for Cal.
But the POW this week is Utah defensive end Nate Orchard who’s 4 sacks were the most allowed to a single player in UCLA history. Orchard lived in the UCLA backfield on Saturday and was the single-biggest factor in UCLA’s worst rushing and passing performance of the season, notching 11 total tackles in the game. Orchard is also the FBS leader in sacks with 8.5 on the season.