Pac-10 Preseason Power Rankings: Volume II

Editor’s Note: As some of you might know, UOSportsDude.com is expanding the site in order to bring to you deeper, more expansive and hopefully better coverage of the Oregon Ducks this coming season and beyond. Please welcome our newest contributor, incoming freshman Matthew Thill, to the mix. Despite growing up in Beaver country, Matt managed to grow up a Duck fan. He was the co-editor of his high school newspaper, but more importantly, Matt brings a brash, youthful exuberance to the blog. You can follow him on Twitter here.

Earlier this week, Jeff Spiegel laid out his Pac-10 power rankings. Now it’s Matt’s turn. See if you can find the common denominator.

Sophomore quarterbacks Matt Barkley and Andrew Luck are the two of the biggest keys in the Pac-10 race.

1. Oregon – Sure the loss of Masoli will hurt temporarily, but in the long run I see LaMichael James, Kenjon Barner and crew picking up the slack and carrying this team. Brandon Bair will clog up the middle and do his part in leading yet another high-octane Duck D. Oh, and for my 2 cents, I think Darron Thomas should get the nod.

2. USC – Aside from all the legal troubles they’re going through, they’ve still got a heck of a football team. The loss of 5* frosh Seantrel Henderson bites, but they have a burgeoning star in Matt Barkley at QB, a stable of highly rated running backs (Dillon Baxter looks special), and Brice Butler at wideout, so they’ll be plenty dangerous. Good, but not quite great; that’s why they’re in my #2 spot.

3. Oregon State – Mike Riley has proven he can win without a top-flight QB,  and the Rodgers brothers remain 5-star threats, but I just don’t see enough overall talent for the Beavers to be Rose Bowl contenders. Look for Quizz to put up huge numbers though.

4. Stanford – With Gerhart gone, their chance of a Rose Bowl berth is nearly nil; however, they do have one hell of a QB in Andrew Luck. The Cardinal will be solid this season, but without the threat of the run game, a top three finish would be considered a good year for Harbaugh and Co. Look out for incoming freshman LB Shayne Skov, though. He’s my pick for breakout player of the year.

5. Washington – Husky fans should be excited to watch Locker this season. Whether or not he lives up to the hype, every time he touches the ball there’s a chance something special will happen. Despite my anti-Husky bias, he is a legitimate candidate for the No. 1 overall pick next year. With Sark starting to settle in, these guys are definitely on the rise.

6. Arizona – The Wildcats always bring a scrappy, competetive team to the table every year. Nick Foles is extremely talented and will turn heads this season – in case you missed on him last year. But with the loss of seven defensive starters and nearly every single assistant coach, expect a drop-off from their impressive third place finish last season. Although they do still have the offensive firepower to pull an upset any given Saturday.

7. UCLA – With Kevin Prince running the offense these guys should be another solid team. With the talent they bring in, UCLA will always be looked at as a program that should contend. Neuheisel is eagerly awaiting the chance to prove his doubters wrong and show people UCLA is legit. Will this finally be the year?

8. Cal – Kevin Riley has had a roller coaster ride of a career as the Golden Bear’s signal caller. Now a senior, can he finally put it all together and deliver a full season of consistent play? Because of all the talent Cal lost – including now Detroit Lions RB Jahvid Best – he will have to if there’s any chance for them to finish in the top half of the conference.

9. Arizona State – Just like Cal, ASU will be doing some rebuilding this year. The Sun Devils are breaking in a new quarterback this season, in an offense that doesn’t exactly return much talent from last season – the unit finished 9th in the conference with 18.1 points per game (thank God for WSU). While not expected to be a factor this year, ASU may be worth watching just because of Vontaze Burfict alone. Only a sophomore, the linebacker was named to the 2010 Bronko Nagurski Trophy Watch List.

10. Washington State – Ahh, finally we get to the Cougs. While they are improving, and moving from “they just suck” to “likable underdog” territory, they are still a long ways off from making noise in the Pac-10. Jeff Tuel is a talented QB and does offer some much needed hope for the future to the depressed WSU faithful.

Pac-10 Preseason Power Rankings: Is Oregon a Lock for Number One?

Editor’s Note: As some of you might know, UOSportsDude.com is expanding the site in order to bring to you deeper, more expansive and hopefully better coverage of the Oregon Ducks this coming season and beyond. Please welcome our newest writer, recent University of Oregon grad,  Jeff Spiegel, to the mix. He also writes for bumcitybloggers.wordpress.com and scoutingthesports.com. You can follow him on Twitter here.

The official Pac-10 preseason Media Poll comes out this week. That said, we thought it’d be a good time for our writers over here at UOSportsDude.com to give our individual predictions for the conference as well. Up first: Mr. Spiegel.

Make sure to leave your thoughts below in the comments!

As someone who made the trip to Palo Alto last November, I can tell you first hand that Andrew Luck is LEGIT.

1) Oregon – When the defending champion returns 17 starters, nine of whom were part of the best offense in the conference last year, they deserve to remain at the top. The loss of Jeremiah Masoli hurts the Ducks, but with a defense that will continue to improve, and the best running back corps in the conference (and maybe nation aside from ‘Bama), I don’t expect the Ducks to miss a beat this season.

2) USC – While many people are picking them to finish near the top, I think USC remains one of the biggest wildcards in the conference. Based on talent alone, they definitely deserve this ranking. However, it remains to be seen how motivated they will be without the possibility of a postseason, and how well Lane Kiffin can handle the pressure that comes with being the head coach at USC.

3) Stanford – While the Cardinal will severely miss Toby Gearhart this season, Andrew Luck is a dark horse candidate for conference player of the year.  While everyone is busy hyping up Jake Locker, many seem to forget how good Luck is. And with arguably the best coach in the conference in Jim Harbaugh, I’m predicting a big season in Palo Alto.

4) Oregon State – The biggest question mark this season will be who plays quarterback for the Beavers. Although whoever ends up under center will have some serious help in James and Jaquizz Rodgers. While the Beavers need both of these guys to stay healthy in order to remain successful, Mike Riley always seems to make things happen in Corvallis, and I don’t think this season will be any different.

5) Washington – Even though I mentioned earlier that I thought the Jake Locker hype machine was a little excessive, I must also add that it isn’t without reason. This guy has all of the tools you look for in a quarterback, and now in his second season in the Sark system, Locker could make the jump into the elite group of quarterbacks in conference history. Combine all that with the emergence of Chris Polk, and the Huskies know that their success hinge solely on whether or not their inexperienced defense can rise to the occasion.

6) California – The Golden Bears remain an interesting team to predict, given the history of quarterback Kevin Riley. No player in the conference has experienced such highs and lows over their career, and yet, here he stands as the starting quarterback for his senior year.  While I don’t think he has the tools to consistently lead an elite college program, the Bears have plenty of talent overall, and should remain in the middle of the pack this season.

On the other side of the Bay, Kevin Riley is no Andrew Luck.

7) UCLA – Call me an optimist, but I think this is the year that UCLA finally emerges under Rick Neuheisel as a serious competitor (Eds note: Since when did 7^th place become seriously competitive?).  With the return of quarterback Kevin Prince, and a new offensive scheme, I think UCLA is poised to compete, as long as their defense can maintain their high level of play.  That said, this is a defense that loses Brian Price and Alterraun Verner – which is why I have them finishing seventh.

8) Arizona – Not much to say here other than that I’m not expecting much from the Wildcats this season. The offense does have some playmakers, but overall this team just doesn’t jump out at me. I have a hard time believing they’ll be anything other than bystanders in the conference race.  A player to watch this season, however, is quarterback Nick Foles, who quietly put together a very impressive rookie season last year, and emerged last season as the conference’s best kept secret.

9) Arizona State – Unfortunately for ASU, the quarterback competition between Threet and Osweiler – not exactly Rudy Carpenter vs. Sam Keller – may be the most exciting and talked about storyline for the program this season. The team lost seven players on each side of the ball, and with a new quarterback and a new system, folks shouldn’t be expecting much come fall.

10) Washington State – The Cougars will be much, much, much better this season, and may even sneak out of the cellar. However, it’d be a miracle for the Cougs to finish outside the bottom three. The Cougars are a young team with some nice pieces, but in the tough Pac-10, they’re still a long way from being relevant again.  Jeff Tuel has a chance to become a good college quarterback, but it remains to be seen if he has enough help around him to make a difference.

Pac-10 Preview Week 13: A Week Off Before the Only Game That Matters

Monistat: USC's first choice for effective yeast infection relief. courtesy: http://duckvoodoo.com

Normally I would be angry about the Ducks having a week off, but to tell you the truth, I could use a break. I am completely spent from that down to the wire, pulling out my hair, covering my eyes, instant classic, comeback win down in Arizona.

I was so nervous in the fourth quarter it felt like I had just drunk 17 cups of coffee. And then when Jeremiah Masoli found Ed Dickson in the back of the end zone on that beautiful post route, it was like I had a Starbucks double-shot to account for the giddiness.

To sum up, I was shaking more than a Shakira music video.

But now we get to look ahead to a game even more important and nerve-wrecking than last Saturday: the 113th Civil War.

And just so we can properly hype up this game to the mammoth proportions it deserves, there will be a Super Bowl-esque break beforehand.

With how much attention the game is drawing already, it will take about seven overtimes for this game to live up to the hype.

But that’s enough about that, for now.

With Thanksgiving on Thursday, I’m making my picks for the rest of the Pac-10 early.

Stanford 38, Notre Dame 24: The Fighting Irish have taken a beating this year, figuratively and literally. If the media hasn’t been hard enough on Charlie Weis and his team this year, fans are going above and beyond to get the message across that 6-5 just doesn’t cut it in South Bend.

After last week’s devastating home loss to Connecticut, quarterback Jimmy Clausen was punched in the face by a disappointed fan. And much like Notre Dame this season, Clausen did not fight back and left.

If the Fighting Irish can’t handle a single fan at a sports bar, imagine what Heisman candidate Toby Gerhart will do to them this Saturday. I don’t like their chances.

Arizona 34, Arizona State 17: This has let-down game written all over it for Arizona. It will be hard for the emotionally bruised Wildcats to bounce back from the disappointing loss to Oregon, especially on the road.

But luckily for them, the Sun Devils just aren’t a very good football team. And hey, they are still in the running for the Holiday Bowl, so don’t tell me they have nothing left to play for.

Washington 28, Washington State 17: As bad as these teams were last year, the Apple Cup was one of the more exciting (yet pathetic) games of the season.

Both of the Washington schools got off to relatively promising starts this season, so it is disappointing for these teams to have a mere combined two Pac-10 wins coming in to this year’s game.

If you have nothing better to do Saturday afternoon, it might be fun to watch these two teams battle for supremacy in the state of Washington. But then again, that’s like being the tallest midget or smartest retard. Even if you win, you still suck.

USC 24, UCLA 17: On the bright side, USC fans won’t have to complain about suffering through another Rose Bowl. With a win, the Trojans will make the execs over at the Holiday Bowl the happiest people alive. And the Bruins? Well, they would be happy with the Poinsettia Bowl.

Can you imagine that if USC loses this game it would fall to 4-4 in conference? I can’t even remember the last time that happened. I am going to attribute the fall of the Trojans to the beating Oregon put on them in Autzen on Halloween. Take that, Matt Barkley! Fear the Juju!

The Miracle Run Comes to an End as Oregon Lets Down at Stanford

No matter how many Ducks tried, there was just no stopping Toby Gerhart.

After the last four weeks, and especially after last week’s blowout of USC, I thought we were invincible. I thought Chip Kelly would never let his team show up unprepared, I thought the defense was for real, and I thought going on the road wouldn’t matter.

But boy, oh, boy was I wrong. And Toby Gerhart was there to remind me; it felt like he personally punched me in the gut on every single one of his 38 dominating carries.

I got too caught up in the winning streak. I didn’t take Stanford seriously. Even if we had played Florida I thought the Ducks would have won going away. I was overconfident. I was naïve. I was cocky.

Not even for one second did the thought of losing cross my mind. I honestly wasn’t even worried until the end of the third quarter, when Gerhart ran in his third touchdown to put the Cardinal up by 17.

At that moment, to quote Kanye West, “It all falls down.”

I could feel the game, and more importantly the national championship slipping away. The Heisman hopes of Jeremiah Masoli and LaMichael James eroded, just like the defense on those 38 Gerhart carries.

On Bill Simmons’ Levels of Losing this game ranked as a combination of The Alpha Dog and The “This Can’t Be Happening”.

Simmons definition of The Alpha Dog perfectly depicts what happened: “It might have been a devastating loss, but at least you could take solace that a superior player made the difference in the end. Unfortunately, he wasn’t playing for your team… You feel more helpless here than anything.”

On Saturday, Toby Gerhart was the alpha dog. Nothing Oregon did could stop him. His longest run was for 31 yards, yet he compiled over 220. Every carry, the Maxwell Award semi-finalist would break two tackles and then fall forward for six yards. It was heart-wrenching. Every play I knew it was coming, and every play I felt more and more helpless.

And if that weren’t enough, there was definitely a “This Can’t Be Happening” feeling as well. “You’re supposed to win, you expect to win, the game is a mere formality. … Suddenly your team falls behind, your opponents are fired up, the clock is ticking and it dawns on you for the first time, “Oh, my God, this can’t be happening.”

Here are my thoughts on the game:

·    Stanford was far  and away the better team today. I still feel Oregon is better overall, but there is no question they played harder and wanted this game more than the Ducks.

·    All the injuries Oregon has suffered finally started to add up and take effect. Without WT3 and Willie Glasper, the defense was helpless against the pass.

·    Talmadge Jackson alone made Andrew Luck look like John Elway.

·    For the first time in over a month, the defensive line had no push. The Stanford O-Line did a tremendous job of opening holes and giving Luck time in the pocket to find the open receiver.

·    The Ducks had given up 58 points in their previous five games. Then in one game, give up 51 to the Cardinal.

·    Oregon had been giving up 4.6 yards per attempt to Pac-10 quarterbacks; Luck averaged 12.6 yards.

·    Just as important as Gerhart for Stanford, was Chris Owusu. The speed demon put up 197 yards on five returns, giving the Cardinal a short field and recapturing the momentum after every Oregon touchdown.

·    Oregon, meanwhile, had the third best average yards per kickoff return in the country coming into this game, but on nine returns, the Ducks averaged just 19 yards a piece.

·    On the bright side, Oregon still controls their own destiny to the Rose Bowl. If they can get past Arizona in Tuscon, which is no small feat for the Ducks, only a total collapse would keep Oregon out of Pasadena on New Year’s Day.

·    The San Jose Mercury’s Jon Wilner couldn’t have predicted Saturday’s outcome any better. As part of his reasoning for picking Stanford in a “close, entertaining, high-scoring victory”, Wilner said that the atmosphere at Stanford Stadium was a huge edge for the home team.

·    Wilner wrote: “Sure, Autzen Stadium’s a tough place to play with the non-stop, jet-engine noise. But just watch as the laid-back, Riesling-drinking, tailgating-among-the-eucalyptus-tree Stanford crowd lulls the Ducks to sleep.”

·    Wilner couldn’t have been more right. Stanford Stadium has one of the shittiest atmospheres in college football. If it weren’t for us Duck fans, you could have heard a pin drop.

·    This game felt exactly like the Purdue games the past two years, except for the comeback part.

·    I can’t remember the last time Oregon put up 570 yards and lost.

·    At least Nick Allioti took full responsibility for the loss.

·    Allioti looks exactly like John Abruzzi from Prison Break.

·    I hate Stanford’s band. They had no sync, no togetherness. It looked like 50 people wearing red jackets and trumpets wandered on the field and started running around and playing off-key music.

·    And what was with the two guys with fake horns pulling the wagon around the field? I’m still trying to figure that one out.

·    Stanford’s halftime show was even worse than our color guard. I feel like I should have brought pen and paper for notes. Total buzz kill.

·    If losing to Stanford wasn’t enough by itself, the Stanford alum sitting behind me was on his phone giving a play-by-play to his friend. If I weren’t in shock from the loss, I would have turned around and done something politically incorrect.

·    You know those Nike sport specific t-shirts? Well I saw one that said Stanford Studying. I wasn’t even surprised. Only at Stanford.

Oregon-Stanford: Expect the Ducks to Keep Rolling

It turns out that Masoli really is as good as he was in the Holiday Bowl last year. Good news for Oregon. Bad news for Stanford.

Stanford might have a nicer campus, smarter students, and even a better synchronized swimming team, but when it comes to football, there is no doubt that Oregon comes out on top.

The Ducks are coming off a big win, while the Cardinal have been home resting up during their open date.

This has pushed many pundits to put the Ducks on upset watch this Saturday, but like Rob Moseley from the Register-Guard wrote, “Is an obvious trap game actually a trap game if everybody in the country thinks it’s a trap game?”

Not with Chip Kelly at the helm.

Many coaches spew clichés, but Kelly has more than lived up to his of “one game at a time.” More importantly, the players have bought in 100 percent.

Left tackle Bo Thran echoed the intense focus that Kelly has preached to his team weekly, particularly this week after the tremendous high from beating USC last Saturday. Kelly isn’t worried about a letdown against the Cardinal.

“It’s a special team,” Kelly said. “Their mindset is really good right now. We all live in the moment.”

So what will it take for the Ducks to get their eighth straight win?

There’s no reason to believe that Stanford will be able to slow down the Ducks offense. Jeremiah Masoli and LaMichael James have emerged as legitimate stars, and Heisman candidates, since the turnaround against Cal in September.

Since the game, Masoli has been the epitome of efficiency, completing over 70 percent of his passes, while running for 7.5 YPC in his 29 attempts.

James, meanwhile, will have a chance to break the 1,000-yard mark for the season this weekend, which would be just the 16th time in Oregon history and the first time ever for a freshman. The diminutive speedster is 16th in the country in rushing yards and third in yards per carry.

James has exploded the last three games, each time surpassing the 150-yard plateau.

Defensively, I expect Nick Allioti to focus on stopping Toby Gerhart, a semifinalist for the Maxwell Award. Stack nine in the box and force Andrew Luck to beat you through the air.

Although Luck definitely has the potential to be a great quarterback, he hasn’t been able to win a game this season when he’s had to do it by himself. The five-star recruit and, of course, valedictorian from Texas is 0-3 in games where he has attempted 30 or more throws.

Bottom line, I expect the Ducks to come out with another win.  Playing on the road is tough, and Stanford is a much improved team under Jim Harbaugh, but Oregon just has too many weapons.

I expect the Cardinal to hang around in the first half, but then the Ducks will run away with it in the third quarter.

Prediction: Oregon 42, Stanford 17