THE PAC12 THREAD v.4

[The Oldtimer]

I don't want to look past anyone especially after BC last season. But Stanford could be the first test

Yeah I agree. After last year losing two games at the very end, I 'm not taking anything for granted.

 

[WhiteMamba]

So USC might be legit.

Rosen is the truth.

Stanford is hot garbage.

ASU was either overrated or aTm is much better than expected.

Washington State, Leach last season

Oregon is going to score a lot and get scored on a lot.

Did I miss anything?

 

[WhiteMamba]

Alls I can say....

Brett who?

Josh Rosen was voted player of the week.

 

[mrwallace2ku]

My highlight of the day yesterday...meeting OD for the 1st time at Mamba's tailgater...good guy.

 

[TheRobotDevil]

So USC might be legit.

Rosen is the truth.

Stanford is hot garbage.

ASU was either overrated or aTm is much better than expected.

Washington State, Leach last season

Oregon is going to score a lot and get scored on a lot.

Did I miss anything?

Watch out for Cal

 

[TROJAN-MAN]

So USC might be legit.

Rosen is the truth.

Stanford is hot garbage.

ASU was either overrated or aTm is much better than expected.

Washington State, Leach last season

Oregon is going to score a lot and get scored on a lot.

Did I miss anything?

Remember Kenny thrill ?

Lets wait & see before we crown him with the heisman

 

[TheRobotDevil]

My highlight of the day yesterday...meeting OD for the 1st time at Mamba's tailgater...good guy.

Hopefully your next highlight is beating Michigan

 

[mrwallace2ku]

Hopefully your next highlight is beating Michigan

I would take that win in a heartbeat, perhaps we should have scheduled that juggarnaut of a team in Portland State instead.

 

[WhiteMamba]

 

[WhiteMamba]

Watch out for Cal

They are #2 in North?

Kind of what I thought at beginning of year.

But we can't take too much from that win. Grambling is one of the worst teams in the country

 

[TheRobotDevil]

They are #2 in North?

Kind of what I thought at beginning of year.

But we can't take too much from that win. Grambling is one of the worst teams in the country

Grambling or not I don't like that offense

 

[WizardHawk]

Nice to see some rare sanity up here. There's a reason I refuse to watch any team beat up a cupcake. Didn't watch Oregon or USC nor Cal. You really don't learn a thing about a team playing substandard talent. I won't learn much about UW over the next two, but of course I'm forced to watch those. They will be far more about the tailgating I can assure you.

Hogan looked horrible. Given his past was this just an early season stumble, or has he actually declined?
WSU has struggled to build a defense and most have accepted the issues on that side of the ball given Leach is all about that air raid offense. Well their air raid was a complete dud yesterday. Entirely inexcusable. He's too many years in with his own kids now to have any real excuse for not having an offense that is potent. He's officially on the hot seat.
Utah won, but they still look to have the same issues we've seen in recent years. Wilson is inconsistent and they have odd break downs on both sides of the ball. Jury's out. They are dangerous, but a real threat in the south? Not sold on that game.
Beavs only managed a 6 point lead over 45 minutes of play against a garbage team? Damn. First game of new regime though.
A lot has been made of UCLA, but beating Virginia isn't like beating a power program. Still, easy to see why they went with the true freshman over the other options they had.
But ASU? Damn. That was a complete bomb if you ask me. They were out classed on both sides of the ball. Held toe to toe early in defensive effort, but it was one sided by the end. They have work to do. Big time.
Colorado is easily the worst team the conference has ever had. Over the last two seasons Colorado has beaten one FBS team and that was Cal two years ago. In other words, they haven't beaten an FBS team since November 2013 and they couldn't even beat a bad WAC team this week. They seem to be declining which appears to be nearly impossible.
Arizona? Still no defense. They can score, but if they can't stop UTSA at home they are fucked when they face Pac12 play.
UW did better than I expected on defense and special teams, but I wasn't surprised to see the offense struggle. They are a hot mess on that side of the ball. Line can't block a MWC defense and their play calling for the running game was high school level at best. Defense was missing basic tackles in the first half that artificially made BSU look good on offense. Kids were obviously playing with nerves and not taking care of fundamentals. They did a great job of settling in and taking care of those basics in the second half shutting out a lack luster BSU offense on their own turf. Leaves a lot of room for optimism, but it's kind of like beating up on second tier talent. BSU is not the top 25 team they have been in recent years and that was clear as day. Browning looked like a true frosh thrown in not because he's ready now for college level play, but rather called to duty because the cupboards were too bare of talent above him. He will progress and be a huge threat down the road, but only if they get their line up to speed and get a worth play caller leading that side of the ball.

 

[Not Neutral]

So USC might be legit.

Rosen is the truth.

Stanford is hot garbage.

ASU was either overrated or aTm is much better than expected.

Washington State, Leach last season

Oregon is going to score a lot and get scored on a lot.

Did I miss anything?

PAC didn't show much we didn't already know yesterday. Stanford's loss to NW and Oregon giving up 40+ to an FCS team, scared into taking a field goal with 51 points on the board shows that the North is what it is and that's not much. Washington on the road in tough to play at Boise looked better than anyone else in the North IMO. ASU showed a real lack of discipline with penalties a la the Erickson period and play calling that can't compete in the South; Zona showed not much better in winning nor did Utah. The South will chew itself up. What all that did show was that the power in the PAC is in LA which we all knew to start with.

 

[WhiteMamba]

Washington on the road in tough to play at Boise looked better than anyone else in the North IMO. .

Not sure if serious.

 

[WhiteMamba]

"We all knew the power was in LA".

We did?

 

[WizardHawk]

PAC didn't show much we didn't already know yesterday. Stanford's loss to NW and Oregon giving up 40+ to an FCS team, scared into taking a field goal with 51 points on the board shows that the North is what it is and that's not much. Washington on the road in tough to play at Boise looked better than anyone else in the North IMO. ASU showed a real lack of discipline with penalties a la the Erickson period and play calling that can't compete in the South; Zona showed not much better in winning nor did Utah. The South will chew itself up. What all that did show was that the power in the PAC is in LA which we all knew to start with.

You clearly didn't watch the BSU/UW game did you. Boise is seriously over ranked right now purely on past reputation. They started a sophomore QB that was really bad. I mean not worthy kind of bad, not first game jitters and can recover kind of bad. They ran a very conservative, vanilla offense and only racked up yards in the first half because UW's young kids weren't wrapping up on first solid contact. They corrected that and entirely shut them down. Speaks volumes to how bad BSU is more than anything UW did. I'm encouraged by it, but it doesn't mean shit until they have that kind of defense against a Pac12 team. And our offense is seriously a hot mess.

Stanford had more issues than most expected from their offense given Hogan's experience but they will bounce back and still be dangerous. Only now from the outside looking in at the top 10.

Oregon is who we thought they were. Their fans will tell you they give up more points than other powers because they score so fast they give the other team the ball more than any other power. Their defense only needs to be slightly more effective than their own offense is against the other team. Until Pac schools can show they can keep Oregon under 35 I'm not sure it matters much how porous their defense is.

I can tell you this, given what we saw from ASU, Oregon would probably drop at least 50 on them right now. Only Stanford has shown the ability to slow them down on any given year and their offense isn't up to the task right now, maybe that changes in future weeks.

It will be at least 3-4 more weeks before you get enough data to start classifying where teams are. Until then all this was is another opening week in college football.

 

[trojanfan12]

Since everyone is giving their week one takes, here's mine.

USC- Overall, I liked what I saw. Sarks plan to substitute liberally and get lots of playing time for the freshman went off without a hitch. I liked Helton calling the plays and Wilcox being in the booth. I liked the aggressiveness of the defense, the big play capabilities and the fact that they gave the same effort for pretty much the whole game. On the negative side, the o-line still needs to gel. The run blocking was inconsistent and they gave up 5 sacks in the first half (although they did correct that at halftime and gave 0 in the 2nd half). End of the day though, they beat a team 55-6 that they are supposed to beat 55-6.

UCLA - Rosen was very solid. The kid could be a future Heisman candidate. We'll see how he responds to better competition, but he looked good and UCLA didn't appear to have to limit the playbook at all for him, which is a great sign. I thought the defense looked real good in the red zone, but pretty average between the 20's.

ASU - I thought they showed some resiliency after falling behind 14-0 and pulling to within a field goal. Then, it was almost like they quit in the 4th quarter. They also didn't seem as fast as I expected. Definitely plenty of time to recover, but wasn't a good look from them.

Arizona - If Scooby is out very long, their defense is in trouble. If they give up 32 to UTSA, what will PAC-12 offenses do to them? On the bright side, the offense looked good and Solomon is going to be a handful for PAC defenses.

Utah - Looked good against a substandard Michigan team. They won't win the PAC or even the South, but they are going to be a headache for everyone they play.

Colorado - They were, well........Colorado.

Oregon - Offense looked like it didn't miss Mariota as much as some thought, but it was EWU. We'll get a better read when they play Sparty. The defense looked like it has some holes. Can't be giving up 42 points to EWU. Especially since their best offensive weapon now plays for the Ducks.

Cal - 52 points at halftime and 73 for the game is impressive against anyone, but can't take too much from that game. Grambling is among the worst of teams at their level. I read an article not too long ago about how run down their facilities are.

Stanford - Don't know what that was, but it wasn't a Stanford offense. They have a lot of work to do. Northwestern isn't necessarily the cupcake they've been in years past, but they shouldn't be beating Stanford.

Oregon St. - Did what they were supposed to do. Next week, when they play @Michigan, we'll get a better idea of where they are.

Washington St. -

Washington - Actually looked better than I thought they would. Looked like they were going to get blown out, but they came back and darn near tied the game. Peterson has them heading in the right direction, even if it's going to take a year or 2 before we'll see it in their record.

 

[WhiteMamba]

WOW!!

Committed on the spot

 

[Not Neutral]

"We all knew the power was in LA".

We did?

Except you, of course, Mamba.

 

[WhiteMamba]

Except you, of course, Mamba.

So you are saying we all knew USC and UCLA were the best teams in the PAC going into the year and after week 1 that still holds true?

Based on what?

UCLA can't even stay on the same field as Oregon and USC hasn't beaten UCLA in several of their last games.

Based on beating the snot out of Ark ST and UVA?

We will see how this plays out. And when it's all I said and done it will be another case of NN was wrong and Mamba was right.

HTH