Your Pac-12 players of the week are Oregon’s Kenjon Barner, UCLA’s Eric Kendricks and Utah’s Reggie Dunn. Barner’s weekend has been well documented (and hey, Barner is one of three Heisman candidates who has a real shot), but you might not have realized that Kendricks registered 13 tackles and two sacks against Arizona, while Dunn returned another kickoff 100 yards for a touchdown against Washington State. That makes it two straight weeks now for Dunn as the conference special teams player of the week. Think Washington will kick it to him much this weekend?
A 62-point performance on the road against a solid USC defense confirmed it: Oregon is doing things no team has done before. Tell me this team doesn’t belong in the national championship game if it wins out.
As the leaders in the Pac-12 South, UCLA can’t wait for an impending battle with its Southern California rivals. But first, the Bruins must take care of Washington State, which really gave UCLA a scare in 2011.
Oregon State has been a pleasant surprise for the conference in 2012, but which guys have been the surprise players for the Beavers to help lead this charge to 7-1?
Oregon State’s most recent victim, Arizona State, can learn from the loss (as can the fans) on Saturday night. Also, House of Sparky hands out some position grades for Arizona State’s loss to the Beavers.
Some more teaching points in the Coliseum – what did we learn from USC’s loss to Oregon?
Another November, another late-season run for Utah to the postseason. At 4-5, however, is it too late for the Utes this year? Utah must win two of its final three games, with challenging contests against Washington and Arizona still on the ledger.
Our favorite time of the week – Jon Wilner’s grades for the Bay Area teams! The Mercury News writer rewards Stanford for an Amazing performance against Colorado and punishes Cal for a Disappointing loss that knocked the Golden Bears out of bowl eligibility. I can’t say I came up with that clever way of insinuating the grades for each team – thank Ted Miller for that.
Man, that was a tough game for Arizona. A 66-10 loss to UCLA has Wildcats fans wondering how Arizona moves on from here. As bad as it was on Saturday, the Wildcats still just need one win in the last three weeks to go bowling.
A Bob Condotta regular “Sark bites” can be found here, where you can get the Washington coach’s thoughts on the win over Cal and more. Catchy title, I must say.
Colorado heads to Arizona in disarray, but some silver lining here for Buffs fans. There are a lot of similarities for the Buffaloes heading into the Arizona game. Both 2011 and 2012 squads enter the Arizona week with one win and riding long losing streaks during which Colorado didn’t really have a chance in any of the string of losses. Wait – that’s silver lining, you incredulously ask? Sort of, because Colorado beat Arizona 48-29 last year.
Washington State receiver Marquess Wilson has been suspended and will not play in the Cougars’ upcoming game against UCLA.