Three teams stand atop the Pacific-10 Conference, all undefeated in conference play and each with New Year’s Day bowl aspirations.
As for the rest of the conference, it’s hit and miss. USC, UCLA and Washington are in the middle of the pack, while conference surprise California is right behind. Arizona, Stanford and Oregon State have yet to come out on top in a Pac-10 matchup.
The Beavers will remain winless for one more week, as they have their only in-season bye of the year, and Washington State, one of three teams at the top, also won’t play this week.
That leaves four conference matches that are certain, as usual, to get the blood boiling.
Arizona (3-3, 0-2 Pac-10) at Stanford (1-4, 0-2)
2 p.m.
Despite each team’s best efforts not to, one of these two squads will have to finish the Pac-10 season with a win.
Not that both teams haven’t tried their hardest, but it has been a year of miscues and ineptitude for the Wildcats and Cardinal, although Arizona has shown some resiliency in past weeks.
The Wildcats, who sport the Pac-10’s worst scoring offense yet have the conference’s fourth-best scoring defense, hung with Washington until the very last seconds last week, eventually falling to the Huskies, 32-28.
A week before that, they stayed with Oregon for the first half, but a sluggish offense kept them out of the game in the second half, and they succumbed to the Ducks, 31-14.
“We have played some really good football,” Arizona head coach John Mackovic said. “The players should not feel the least bit discouraged about the quality of their play and what we’ve been able to do on the field. We laid it right on the line out there, and even though we were undermanned in terms of numbers on Saturday, we thought we’d win that game.”
The bright spot for Arizona this season has been the play of quarterback Jason Johnson. The senior passed for 443 yards last week against the Huskies — his second offensive output of at least 400 yards this season — and is second in the Pac-10 in total offense with 293.3 yards per game.
As Johnson goes, so goes the Wildcats.
“Jason got a lot of one-on-ones with Bobby (Wade) and Andrae (Thurman) for most of the game, and when he gets those one-on-ones with Bobby and Andrae, he is going to deliver the ball to them,” Mackovic said of Johnson’s play against Washington.
Arizona holds a 12-7 lead in the all-time series against the Cardinal, although Stanford has won two of the last three matchups between the two schools. However, if Stanford can’t get its offense out of the doldrums that has led to three straight losses — including a 36-11 drubbing by Washington State
last week — this one will be a
no-brainer.
Statistics don’t lie in Stanford’s case, exemplified by the Pac-10’s ninth-best scoring offense and the conference’s worst scoring defense. That’s a bad combination.
This is Stanford’s homecoming game, though, so expect nothing to be ordinary.
UCLA (4-2, 1-1) at California (4-3, 1-2)
4 p.m., TBS
UCLA leads this magnificent California rivalry, 46-25-1, and has won five of the last seven games against the Golden Bears. But California, with a new coach and a reinvented quarterback, is no longer a pushover.
After winning just their final game of last season, the Bears have become the surprise of the Pac-10 in 2002. Senior Kyle Boller has led the charge, throwing 18 touchdown passes and just five interceptions this season.
In a 30-28 loss to USC last week, Boller threw for two touchdowns, tying him with Pat Barnes for the all-time California touchdown pass record of 54.
Head coach Jeff Tedford has led the Cal offense to golden territory, outscoring opponents 163-55
in the first half and 90-26 in the first quarter.
It is a group that is the top scoring unit in the Pac-10 this season and features the best rushing attack in the conference.
Against UCLA’s seventh-ranked defense, the Bears will have an excellent opportunity to come away with their fifth win of the season.
But the Bruins will be tough, not just because the game is televised nationally, but because last week’s heartbreaking loss to Oregon is still on the minds of UCLA players and coaches.
“The coaches were upset,” UCLA head coach Bob Toledo told the Daily Bruin. “The players were upset. The fans were upset.
“Obviously when you lose a game, you’re open to criticism.
I understand that. That goes with the territory. We made some costly mistakes.”
Those mistakes — which ranged from a fake field goal on 4th-and-17 to a blocked extra point that would have eventually led to a tie game — have been magnified because of Toledo’s knack for panache in his offensive system. That panache has led to the Pac-10’s third-best offense, but also the third-worst red zone offense.
Couple that with a kicking game that is just 7-of-13 this season, and there is a volatile situation just waiting to be unleashed at UCLA. California’s homecoming could be a tough one for the Bruins.
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