This could be a sad week for the Pac12 during which their depth
will have been tested or a few teams could surprise and put the conference back
on the playoff map.
The almost sure suicide mission for the week is Colorado
daring to travel to Michigan to play Big Blue. On the other hand, the Buffs
have put up a lot of points and yards and stuff and could surprise me which
would set up one of the most important games in the season when they host
Oregon next week. The elephant in the room is that they have slaughtered teams
they should have slaughtered which is a new trick from their bag.
ASU is coming of a nice win and looking a little bit like they
might be a factor in the south. They won’t get much more than a scrimmage from
Texas-San Antonio but that might be just what they need.
UCLA is the third Pac12 team BYU has faced. They won one on a
last second Field goal and made the more guts than brains decision to go for a
two-point conversion and a last second win rather than an extra point and
overtime opportunity in the other. Opportunity never knocked as they failed
badly vs Utah. UCLA is not the match-up they should want for the rubber game.
Rosen hasn’t exactly impressed me but he leads the first real offense the
Cougars will face this year. UCLA should win by at least a touchdown and deny
BYU a last second decision play. The bruins may be playing in the conference
championship this year.
To do that they’ll have to beat USC who I expect to give them
their first step in that direction by embarrassing themselves in Palo Alto
against a solid Stanford team. I don’t expect it to be a close game.
Washington state is going to sneak into the win column when as
they tussle with mighty Idaho. What could have been season two of a rise to relevance
has started out with two stumbles so I’m not expecting the Cougs to play in a
bowl game this year.
Oregon State, Washington and Utah are three more teams not
being tested this week as they take on Idaho, Portland State and San Jose State
respectively. A loss by any of them will be hard to fathom.
Speaking of surprises Cal is going to lay a big one on me if
they beat Texas who handled Notre Dame to signal they might be a real team. The
bears haven’t done that yet and won’t this weekend.
It’s Hard to call Hawaii as they play Arizona with both teams
looking weak. I suspect the Rainbow warriors will continue to forget what they
are doing vs what they should be doing and hand Arizona a win, but the Cat’s
might turn it down. Not great before Solomon got injured, Arizona is still
searching to figure it all out.
Finishing it off is Oregon visiting Nebraska. Betters have
Nebraska as a three-point favorite, but I have three points indicating there
might be a better way to bet. First, Nebraska is coached by Mike Riley who has
spent quite a few years failing to beat an Oregon squad. Second is Nebraska is
a member of the Big10ish where non-conference games are often an adventure. Third,
the Huskers are an unrated team facing a rated one. While none of those are
solid reasons, together they will find the strength to produce a two touchdown
or more win for the Ducks.
Of course if I were a Nebraska fan I’d say first, Oregon has
not proven it can defend against the run. Second, Oregon has not proven it can
defend the pass yet and third The Cornhuskers lost a lot of very close games
last year and should win a lot more games this season.
Neither concoction of addled reason means much so I’ll still
predict a solid win for Oregon.
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