Pac-12 Roundup: Week 6
Six weeks into the season we’re (sadly) already to college football’s mid-season point. Though last weekend’s Pac-12 schedule didn’t have any blockbuster games, there were five matchups that took us a long way toward sorting things out in both divisions. Let’s look at them a little closer in this weekend’s Pac-12 Roundup:
BIGGEST WIN: Lots of candidates this week as OREGON STATE finally got on the board, and UCLA kept (mathematical) bowl hopes alive for Steve Hartman and his dozen or so Bruin followers. OREGON had a big week too, issuing a response to everyone who crowed about Cal’s two-point loss to the Ducks in 2010 like it was a two-touchdown victory.
But once again, the biggest win of the week was by the ARIZONA STATE SUN DEVILS. ASU completed their sweep of their presumed competition in the Pac-12 South with their win over Utah in Salt Lake City.
Arizona State was 4-1 and ranked in the top 25 after their 43-22 drubbing of USC, but the Devils were 0-1 on the road and had their share of doubters. Those doubters weren’t without reason. In four home games, 1st year starting QB Brock Osweiler threw a 9:3 ratio completing 73% of his passes.
In his one road game, Osweiler threw 2 INT to only one TD and his completion % was about twenty points lower. ASU is also the 2nd most penalized team in the Pac-12, and conventional wisdom says you can’t beat good teams on the road averaging 78 yards per game in penalties.
Fortunately for the Devils, Utah was not a good team on Saturday. The Utes gave away 70+ penalty yards themselves and even more critically, turned the ball over to the Sun Devils repeatedly. Arizona State leads the Pac in forced turnovers and they took the ball from Utah five times while not committing a single turnover themselves.
Osweiler threw 325 yards and 3 TDs while receivers Mike Willy and Gerell Robinson used their size advantage to make things very difficult for Utah’s over-worked secondary. ASU is looking like a complete team that now has a stranglehold on the Pac-12 South.
For Utah’s part, this game played out almost exactly like last week’s debacle against Washington. The Utes defense kept the game close in the first half, (the Utes trailed 10-7 at half in both games) but 5 turnovers by the offense meant a lot of short fields for Brock Osweiler and a lot of short rests for the Utes D. By the 4th quarter Utah’s defense was simply overworked and the Devils blew the game open just like the Huskies had a week before.
Utah is now 0-3 in the Pac-12 and the shortcomings of the program are making themselves manifest. Kyle Whittingham was a phenomenal defensive coordinator under Utah’s two previous head coaches, and the Utes D. remains a force. But Whittingham deserves criticism for his failure to recruit offensive players.
In 2008, Utah went 13-0 and beat Alabama in the Sugar Bowl to finish as the AP #2. It was a tremendous accomplishment that lead the local media to made excuses for Whittingham two months later when the Nation’s #2 team turned in the #67 recruiting class.
Recruiting rankings are of course, over-blown, but a team finishing in the AP top 5 should at least be in top 50 recruiting, even if the team isn’t a member of a BCS conference.
But the Whittingham worship continued in SLC. Now it is three years later and the skill position cupboards are bare in SLC. Utah entered summer camp with a shaky QB with health issues and apparently
had no plan B until Jon Hays transferred to the program over the summer. On Monday Utah announced that Jordan Wynn’s shoulder surgery will sideline him for the remainder of 2011. It is simply unacceptable that Utah left spring ball with only one viable QB. What would the Utes have done had Jon Hay’s JC not dropped football?
Utah is also the only team in FBS that did not return a single rushing yard from last season. They did land a big name RB recruit in local standout Harvey Langi, but he is a true freshman and isn’t ready for the big time yet. Utah’s other tailback, JC transfer John White is also a work in progress.
This level of inexperience makes laughable Utah’s portending to be “big time”. There’s nothing Norm Chow can do to scheme around 10 turnovers in two games and there is no shortcut to experience. Utah must simply take its lumps with the players it has.
However, the Utes can now take steps to insure that they won’t find themselves in this position three years from now. Athletic Director Chris Hill must invest in facilities that can compete in Pac-12 recruiting and hire more assistant coaches that can contribute in this area where Whittingham is clearly deficient. Otherwise, Utah may soon find its dream of Pac-12 membership is more like a nightmare.
WORST (OR BEST?) LOSS / IS PTR A FOOTBALL PROPHET?: Clearly, there is only one candidate for “Worst Loss” this week. ARIZONA had plenty of excuses for it’s 1-4 (0-4 v. FBS) start with three games v. top 10 teams and the “easy game” at USC. However, as noted here last week, though each of Arizona’s nine consecutive FBS losses was excusable individually, that long stretch of unwinnable games is a difficult thing for a team’s morale or head coach to weather.
On Saturday, Arizona showed their morale had indeed been beaten, and by Monday, their head coach was likewise gone. Mike Stoops was a defensive head coach and Arizona’s defense was laughable (Stoops leaves with it ranked 117thin FBS. Did you know there were 117 FBS teams? I didn’t.) Here are some of UA defensive highlights this season:
-9/8: OK State’s Brandon Weeden completes 22 of his first 23 passes and finishes with 398 passing yards.
– 9/17: Stanford rolls up 567 total yards.
– 9/24: LaMichael James breaks Oregon’s all-time single game rushing record with 288.
-10/1: Matt Barkley breaks USC’s all-time single game passing yards record with 467.
– 10/8: Oregon State scores more in two quarters (27), than they did against any other team in four quarters (though Sacramento State gave up 28 to the Beaves in an OT game).
The good news is, Arizona acted proactively to the situation. Losing to Oregon State was the last straw for Stoops and it’s best that Arizona not stumble through the season with a lame duck coach. It’s in Arizona’s best interest to act on their decision and begin moving forward as soon as possible.
Stoops found Arizona’s program a smoldering hole in the ground after the Macovic disaster, and lifted it to respectability, but it’s clear he had taken the program as far as he could. It’s time for a change in the Desert. Arizona fans can now start hoping for better.
PLAYER OF THE WEEK: PTR has noticed that this generally goes to the best offensive player of whichever team just played Arizona, so we’ll go elsewhere this week and hand it to the Pac-12’s top Heisman Candidate, ANDREW LUCK. With John Elway and Tiger Woods watching from the Sidelines Luck had his finest passing day of the season, throwing for 370 yards and three touchdowns with a passer rating of 196.9!!! That boosts his season passer rating to an insane 182.3. In a related story, less than 48 hours after returning from seeing Luck live, Elway would announce that Tim Tebow will be the Broncos new starting quarterback.
Though in the AP top 10 all year long, Stanford hasn’t had a high-profile game yet this season so they are still sort of lying in the weeds. Andrew Luck is a legitimate Heisman candidate, but his Heisman campaign won’t launch in earnest until later this month when he’ll start to face some big name defenses.
MOST OVERBLOWN WIN OF THE WEEK: I probably don’t mention UCLA enough in this space, so here you go Bruins. You beat Washington State at home. Congratu-freaking-lations. I know the Cougs were 3-1 but if you look at their schedule, it’s not a 3-1 that would be impressive anywhere but Pullman. A lot of pundits around town are saying that the win over Wazzu saved Rick Neuheisel’s job. Well it probably did. For this week.
Some hardened Bruins are looking into the schedule and seeing possible wins v. Arizona, Colorado and Utah. If they go 3-0 there, they’ll finish a bowl-eligible 6-6. The other side of that coin is that all three of those winnable games are on the road and if the Bruins don’t start playing better, they could just as easily finish 1-5.
Even if the Bruins scrape to get to 6-6 it’s hard to see the Neuheisel Era as anything but a failure in Westwood. It’s hard to say whom the Bruins should tag to replace their embattled coach, but it’s just as hard to see a silver lining over the Rose Bowl.
In other words, take heart UCLA! It’s almost basketball season.