With a month remaining in the season, Stanford appears to be the outright favorite to win the Pacific-10 Conference. In fact, in writing this column, I wanted to say how we might as well give the conference championship trophy to the Cardinal right now.
And why not?
Head coach Tyrone Willingham’s squad — minus its starting quarterback — has upset consecutive top-5 teams in Oregon and UCLA. The Cardinal are ranked No. 6 in the Bowl Championship Series, and a win over 11th-ranked Washington would only push them higher. And they have, according to the BCS, the toughest schedule in the country.
Why not just give them a bid to the Fiesta Bowl now?
One word: parity.
First, Stanford must win in another tough atmosphere against the Huskies, a team that looks far from its Rose Bowl form of a year ago, but is somehow pulling out Oregon-like victories all over the place (try four wins by three points or less).
If the Cardinal get past Washington and roll over Arizona and California (as they should), the only other question marks lie in their two nonconference games against Notre Dame (which is very un-Notre Dame-like this year) and San Jose State, a team the Cardinal have lost to the last two years.
It’s easy to assume, though, that with an inexperienced quarterback in Chris Lewis and a suspect defense, the Cardinal could easily slip in one of their five remaining games.
And besides Stanford? UCLA, Washington and Washington State, ranked ninth, 11th and 12th in the BCS, respectively, all have legitimate shots at the Pac-10 crown. The Bruins and Cougars were both undefeated until last weekend. The two teams face each other in Pullman this week, which will knock one of them from the equation.
Washington can’t hang onto the edge forever, can they? Following Stanford, the Huskies travel to Oregon State, host the Cougs and then head to Miami, a team ranked No. 1 in both the coaches and media polls. Thus, the Huskies will likely fall flat.
What about Oregon, you ask? The Ducks’ best — and easiest — hope of getting free Tostitos on New Year’s Day is if Stanford loses one of its three remaining conference games. Assuming Mike Bellotti’s team wins its three remaining games, including a battle with No. 9 UCLA, the Ducks would hold the edge.
Assuming Stanford doesn’t fall, though, Oregon will have to go head-to-head, and the Cardinal, of course, holds the edge there after their 49-42 win at Autzen Stadium. But there’s one more catch: If Washington State wins out, thus creating a three-way tie at the top, Oregon would go to the Fiesta Bowl because 1) The Cougs played Montana State and therefore would not have as many quality nonconference wins, and 2) Out of the three teams, Oregon was the last to go to the Rose Bowl (Stanford went in 2000 and WSU in 1998) and so would be heading to Tempe.
Much will be decided this weekend, in what should be the most exciting weekend of the year (heck, California might win a game). And If you take anything anyway from Pac-10 football (or from this column), just remember one thing:
Assume nothing.
Adam Jude is the sports editor for the
Oregon Daily Emerald. He can be reached
at [email protected].