1a. Oregon 42 at Arizona State 31 - At the end of the season we may look back on this win as being one that turned out to be better then we thought. ASU didn't look anything like they did last year as they were ready to play in the heat, and came right after the Ducks on both sides of the ball. It will be interesting to see how many teams try and copy the Sun Devil game plan of selling out to stop James and making Thomas beat you with his arm and legs... hold on this paragraph is taking too long and my keyboard has cramps and I'll need to stop for a while. Speaking of which, I hope Vontaze Burfict is feeling better.
1b. Stanford 37 at Notre Dame 14 - I struggled with whether or not to put Stanford #1 considering what UCLA just did to Texas, at least we'll have a clear #1 after the upcoming week when the Tree heads into what should be a very hostile Autzen stadium. For all the accolades being given to Luck, look at his line against a mediocre ND defense compared to Thomas against ASU:
Luck - 19/32 238 yards 1TD and 2 INT
Thomas - 19/33 260 yards 2 TD and 1 INT
Biggest factor between the two games was Oregon was 2-13 on third downs while Stanford was 11-16. Should be an interesting game no matter which way you look at it. Let the prognostications and talking heads commence.
3. Arizona 10 vs Cal 9 - Speaking of terrible 3rd down conversions Zona and Cal combined to go 6-26 on third down. That's a line even Jake Locker would be proud of. You had to think that Arizona might stumble coming off such an emotional win at home last week against Iowa, but I didn't think it would take them until the final minute of the game to score their only touchdown. Strong showing by the manic Cal Bears. I'm really interested to see how they respond as they take on UCLA at home next week, a game they really need to win if they have any hope of going bowling at the end of the year.
4. Oregon St 24 at Donkey St 37 - Probably nobody is happier to see the start of Pac 10 play than the Beavers who wrapped up their brutal OOC schedule by getting knocked around by Boise on that god-awful blue turf. They'll need to bounce back and hopefully get healthy this week as they're welcoming in ASU to Corvallis. I'm sure OSU is hoping that Vontaze Burfict hasn't fully recovered from his dives injuries.
5. USC 50 at WSU 16 - Washington St pulled a quick one on USC by adding the stupid pistol offense to their game this week and was able to go up 7 on USC. They were so excited to have a lead in a Pac 10 game that they forgot to play defense and Stanley Havili bounced outside and scored on a 59 yard touchdown run. Then Tuel threw a pick six, and I changed the channel.
6. Arizona State
7. UCLA 34 at Texas 12 - I don't know what to think about this. Is Texas that bad? Is UCLA good, and nobody knew it? How bad is Texas' rush defense when they only forced UCLA to throw 9 times for 27 yards... the entire game. This was really a stunner and I'd be inclined to move UCLA higher if it wasn't for the fact that they got shut out at home against Stanford and looked really bad against Kansas St. We'll know more this week when they take on Cal.
8. Cal
9. Washington - I talked to 20 people yesterday and only 4 were upset that UW didn't have a game.
10. Washington St
Utah 56 vs San Jose St 3 - Here's a talking point for you, which conference is worse, the WAC or the MWC? The WAC has Donkey St and Nevada, while the MWC has Utah and TCU, but other than that, there isn't a lot of strength in much else of the conference.