Pac-12 Roundup: Week 9

Holy smokes I sucked it up this week. Went 2-4 this week. The only games I correctly predicted were Oregon and Stanford's wins and seriously, even a Stanford grad could have predicted those. So I present my Pac-12 Roundup without any level of pride. I've fallen to 42-23 on the season.

Washington 20 Oregon State 17
Washington showed some toughness after all. Though they were aided by Mike Riley's decision to go with QB Sean Mannion who was coming off knee surgery. The sophomore gunslinger tossed four interceptions as the Beavers offense struggled to get anything going. Cody Vaz came in only to drive the Beavers down the field and throw a TD toss on his first and only drive.

Do I smell a QB controversy brewing?

Washington gets their second win over a ranked team at home this season, which hopefully means they'll go and lay an egg against a lesser team the following week. And who do they play next? The Bears?

USC 36 Arizona 39
I wouldn't quite label it a "shocker" but the Wildcats certainly pulled off the upset and the win this 'Zona team needed in knocking off 9th ranked USC. USC's defense had been playing pretty well this season, but fell apart in the second half, giving up 26 points as the Trojans could only help but watch their national championship, and likely BCS bowl dreams wash down the drain. Honestly, do you see this Trojan team beating Oregon twice? Heck, I'm not sure they even beat Notre Dame.

It's shocking to think a team with such NFL talent will end up in Sun Bowl.

The more I watch Matt Barkley, the more I'm convinced this guy is closer to Jimmy Clausen than he is to Andrew Luck. The guy will have an NFL career sure, but I just don't see a can't miss NFL prospect here.

Conversely, I'm already drafting Marqise Lee for my 2014 NFL Fantasy Football League. Simply phenomenal. 16 catches for 345 yards and two scores. He's topped 1100 receiving yards just 8 games into the season. Just a man amongst boys out there.

Arizona State 43 UCLA 45
Both Arizona teams hosted some pretty entertaining games on Saturday, though Todd Graham's Sun Devil squad wasn't nearly as lucky. In a much higher scoring contest than anticipated, ASU's Taylor Kelly hit DJ Foster with a little more than minute left to go to put the Sun Devils up 43-42. It looked like a gut-wrenching loss for the Bruins only for Brett Hundley to drive the team into FG range. Ka'imi Fairbairn (no idea how that's pronounced) hit the 33 yard-game winner as time expired.

Suddenly the Pac-12 South is veeeerrrry interesting with USC, UCLA, and ASU all tried at 2 conference losses. Plus, USC still plays UCLA and ASU, so things are wide open in the South. Who you putting money on to get pounded by the Ducks in the conference championship game? #Pac-12North>>>>

Oregon 70 Colorado 14
So I'll admit, I only watched about 3 minutes of this game and watched Oregon score about 2 touchdowns in that time. I sneezed and the score ballooned to 42-0 in the first half. Needless to say I then changed the channel.

So forgive me if I don't have much else to say about this one. Oh except this, did anyone else watch DeAnthony Thomas' punt return? Sweet jeebus.


(Starts at the 0:40 mark)

Stanford 24 Washington State 17
What a snoozer until the last few minutes. Stanford put them up 24-10 after safety Ed Reynolds returned an interception off Jeff Tuel for a score. The Cougars then pulled it to within a score and converted a miraculous pass on 4th and 21 to give them the ball inside Stanford's 10 yard line with about 45 seconds to go. The end result? Typical Cougar drama.

Here are the next two plays according to the official box score:

1st and Goal at STAN 9 Jeff Tuel sacked by Usua Amanam for a loss of 9 yards to the Stanf 19, WASHINGTON ST penalty 0 yard Intentional Grounding accepted.
2nd and Goal at STAN 19 Jeff Tuel sacked by Henry Anderson for a loss of 9 yards to the Stanf 28.

Yep, an intentional grounding penalty and a sack to end the game. 'Cougin it!