Pac-10 Race: Stanford Muscles In, While Oregon Rebounds

We are about a third of the way through the season, and the Pac-10 race is shaping up.

In the pre-season, it looked like USC, Oregon and a Northern California team would battle it out for the championship.

After the debacle at Boise State, Oregon was written off.  Since then, they have rebounded and appear to be the strongest team in the conference.

USC is in a rebuilding year and have lost a conference game, but they've rebounded nicely and can't be counted out.

And a Northern California team is sitting all alone atop the PAC-10 with a 3-0 conference record, while the team across the bay has been struggling and is now 0-2 in conference.

All roughly according plan.  Except that Stanford, not Cal, is atop the Pac-10.  (And USC's loss was not to one of the front-runners, but to Washington.)

Stanford at 3-0 in the conference has an inside track to the championship.  One caveat is that the Cardinal's three wins came over the bottom of the conference. 

They have all been 'convincing' wins of more than a touchdown.  (And the scores actually make things look closer than they actually were.) 

The lone non-conference loss was a 7-point Wake Forest loss that included some questionable officiating.  This looks like the year they will make it back to a bowl game; with the Rose Bowl still (for now) a possibility.

Oregon also controls its own destiny.  The Ducks are currently 2-0 in conference, with victories over Washington State and Cal.  Washington State was expected to be bad.  Cal has just shown how bad it can be in the Pac-10. 

The Ducks are also on a powerful point-spread trajectory:

11 point loss
2 point win
7 point win
39 point win
46 point win
With this trend, they should end up beating Oregon State by 100 or so points. 

Other than the 46 point win against Washington State, the other wins had against progressively better teams.  (No. 16 Utah and No. 6 Cal.)

The bad news: all these victories have been at home, while the lone loss was on the road. The Ducks still have 4 more Pac-10 games on the road, though they do get USC at home.

Arizona is the other undefeated team, at 1-0 in conference.  They are more difficult to predict. 

Overall they are 3-1.  The win over Northern Arizona doesn't count for much. 

They did lose to an Iowa team that is undefeated and now nationally ranked.  They even were a point closer than Penn State, which sounds good.  However, they lost by a larger margin than Northern Iowa and Arkansas State, which doesn't sound so good. 

They did beat Central Michigan, a solid MAC team.  And they did squeak out a narrow victory over a good Oregon State squad.  However, we'll have to wait to get a real feel of how they stack up in the conference.

The Wildcats, Cardinal, and Ducks are undefeated in conference play and control their own destiny. If they win out, they go to the Rose Bowl.  And the way the Pac-10 is playing, any of the three could reasonably win the remainder of their games.

Or they could lose them all.

In the realm of the one-loss teams, Washington has managed to beat perennial power USC, putting them in the front-runner's position and briefly giving them a national ranking.

Unfortunately, they followed it up by getting blown out by Stanford. 

Other than the Stanford loss, Washington's other losses were close losses to solid LSU and Notre Dame teams.  There is no reason why Washington couldn't win a few close games over the remainder of the PAC-10. 

The Rose Bowl is still not out of the question, nor is a 2-10 season. A bowl game is still a distinct possibility.

USC always seems to a blow a PAC-10 game, and then recover to make it to the BCS.  They seemed to struggle (relatively speaking) a little against Washington State, but now seem back to form. 

There is no reason they shouldn't win the remainder of their games.  As long as Washington loses a couple games, they should be on their way back to the Rose Bowl.

Oregon State is 1-1 in the state of Arizona. Out of conference, they squeaked by UNLV, beat up Portland State, and lost to Cincinnati.  All makes for a nice resume of a mid-tier Pac-10 team that goes bowling.

Arizona State beat Idaho State and Louisiana-Monroe. That tells us nothing. They lost on a last-minute field goal to a ranked Georgia team, and then lost again to Oregon State. 

Next week they play Washington State. We'll have to wait until the October 17th game against Washington before we really find out anything about this team. 

UCLA beat teams in the cellar of the Big-12, SEC and Mountain West. Then they lost to Stanford.  Theoretically, they could still win the Pac-10, but it looks like they still need some more rebuilding.  With three non-conference victories, odds of a bowl game are good.

Cal was expected to be good this season.  They were ranked in the top 10 after beating mid-tier Big-10 and ACC teams (as well as Eastern Washington.)  Then Pac-10 play started and they got blown out. 

They did start with two of the strongest teams in the conference (Oregon and USC).  However, Cal has a record of totally imploding when things start going bad.  They are out of contention for the conference title.

They do get Washington State in a two weeks. That may help them get back to their winning ways, and a bowl game should be in their future.

Totally out of contention is Washington State. With only three conference losses, there is still a mathematical possibility they could win the Pac-10, but that would require a number of huge miracles.

For now, they should be happy that that they at least have one victory on the season.

Next week's key games

Stanford at Oregon State. If Stanford wins, they continue the inside track towards the Rose Bowl and come within one game of bowl eligibility.

Arizona at Washington.  Can Washington pull off another conference victory?   Maybe there is something to home field.

If Stanford and Oregon keep winning their games, their meeting in Palo Alto could be the de facto Pac-10 championship.  With the way Oregon is playing, they will likely be favored in their next few games.  Washington and UCLA are on the road, but they do get USC back in Eugene.

Stanford has more of an uphill battle. However, Arizona, Arizona State and Oregon State are all winnable games. (And the Cardinal beat the Wildcats and Beavers last season.)

The Stanford game on Nov. 7 is also the first game that LeGarrette Blount could potentially be back on the field.  Hmmm.  Maybe there were some competitive considerations after all.