Around The Conference Table: Week 10
Final Reservations
This season we go around our writers for their takes on the other conference games that went on in gameweek.
Oregon State @ Washington (Washington wins 24-21)
TD_24 - A nice simple Pac 12 after dark game.....wait you're telling me the power went out in Husky Stadium? Again? Oregon State had many chances to win and it's one of the few times that Coach Smith has hurt the team this year.
Bk97 - Weird game. Each team could have won by multiple TDs if things were slightly different (OSU's turnovers on downs in the red zone, UW's missed/dropped passes and dumb, unforced penalties).
Christopher_h - The high winds kept these high-powered offenses under control, but the UW defense corraled the OSU run game long enough to get the edge and outlast OSU (and take their AP ranking for themselves).
Avinash - Oregon State has a good defense but their offense is very scattershot. This could be a very strange game in Corvallis, I don't imagine we're hitting 35 again.
Rob Hwang - It’s gonna be a real tough game for us this week.
Oregon @ Colorado (Oregon wins 49-10)
TD_24 - Oregon went with a trick play extravaganza in Boulder. Where are our trick plays?
Bk97 - Forget the Cal game. This is still a bad, bad Colorado team that will finish the season with one win.
Christopher_h - Oregon wins a blowout, who could have guessed.
Avinash - Bo Nix really does feel like the best player in college football at times this year, and he really deserves a Heisman invite. I don't want to talk about Colorado, it makes me unhappy.
Rob Hwang - I don’t know who I need to be rooting for now except Oregon.
UCLA @ ASU (UCLA wins 50-36)
TD_24 - No Zach Charbonnet gave me pause for the Bruins but they survived after almost collapsing without him.
Bk97 - Like the Cal-USC game, this is one where the losing team kept pace but never really challenged to win (after the 10-minute mark in the second quarter, ASU never had the ball with less than a 10-point deficit). Credit to the UCLA offense for putting up 400 rushing yard despite Charbonnet's absence.
Christopher_h - Not as close as the final score may have appeared. UCLA still had plenty of firepower, with DTR picking up the slack on the ground in place of the injured Zach Charbonnet. Hard to gameplan against a team that can run the ball so well from both the QB and RB positions.
Avinash - Boy am I going to be happy to be seeing DTR for the last time this week. After five years he finally evolved into the perfect Chip Kelly QB, but for most of that time he happily tortured us.
Rob Hwang - ASU gave them a scare but just didn’t have enough to pull out the upset
Arizona @ Utah (Utah wins 45-20)
TD_24 - Arizona's explosive offense had no chance with the terrible weather in Salt Lake City.
Bk97 - The Utes keep winning comfortably, but it feels like they're a step behind UCLA and Oregon as contenders for the conference title. Too many injuries.
Christopher_h - My opinion of this game hinged on whether or not QB Cam Rising came back for Utah (he did), but despite the numerous injuries at RB/TE, it was the Utah defense that carried this one, shutting down a high-flying Arizona offense and corralling their talented receivers.
Avinash - Arizona defense bad. Very very bad. Utah defense good. Ready for Utah-Oregon already.
Rob Hwang - no surprises in this one.
Washington State @ Stanford (Stanford loses 14-52)
TD_24 - I would like to be known I was at the Washington State vs Stanford game and I was grinning from ear to ear watching it all unfold.
Christopher_h - this Stanford defense would have trouble stopping a wet paper bag.
Avinash - If we lose to this wretched Stanford team I'm going to be very, very sad.
Rob Hwang - We cannot and will not lose to Stanford.
Any other thoughts?
Bk97 - It's fascinating to see how close the races are for the top and bottom of the conference. The top four teams have three total losses among them, all to fellow top-four teams. Meanwhile the bottom four all have one win over a fellow bottom-feeder.
Christopher_h - I was so distraught after a 4 (now 5) game losing streak by the Bears, that I completely forgot to work in this USC fact that I had been keeping in my back pocket all season. USC was where the bin Ladens (yes, the same bin Laden you're thinking of) went to get a US education. Yes, really: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeslam_bin_Ladin
Rob Hwang - It literally rained last week after I wrote that.
"USC was where the bin Ladens (yes, the same bin Laden you're thinking of) went to get a US education."
Man, maybe Pete Carroll was onto something :-D