Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Sport Report! Pac-10 Football!

I'm feeling very useless today - having gone to the motherf*cking BANK like an ADULT yesterday - and so I'm going to blog in order to feel like I've accomplished something, anything. But I'm going to blog about what I want to blog about. I'm going to blog about sports. I'm going to blog about college football.

I don't know why - maybe it's because the World Cup is over, and there are no baseball games on because of the All-Star Game, and I hate playing MLB 2K9 on the X-Box because I can't get Carlos Quentin to catch a damn fly ball, and because the only other thing on TV right now is golf, and golf is boring - but I have had college football on the brain all day today.

First, I went over to fbsschedules.com, and looked at every single one of the Pac-10's schedules for this fall. Like many have said before, one of the great things about Pac-10 football is that they go balls to the wall in their non-conference scheduling, and this year is going to be no exception. In particular, the Oregon State Beavers have an insanely difficult schedule: They open against TCU at Cowboys Stadium in Dallas, followed by a home game against Louisville, followed by a visit to Boise State. I think that the Beavers are trying to shoot the moon this season; Cal, the Ducks, and the Trojans all have to come to Corvallis this year, and with the Trojans banned from the bowl games and the Ducks being too busy stealing laptops to play football, the path is open for an OSU run to the Rose Bowl. If they can manage to win 2-out-of-three of their non-conference games, the Beavers will already be getting national buzz, and then a strong conference showing could have them in line for Pasadena or, even better, an at-large BCS game. (They would have to run the table to get to the championship game, and I honestly don't see that happening.)

Conversely, the Ducks play at USC, at California, and at Oregon State, which is the main reason why I don't think they'll repeat as Pac-10 champs, player suspensions aside. Their non-conference schedule is relatively easy, with two cupcakes (New Mexico and Portland State) sandwiching a trip to Tennessee, with a chance to make the SEC eat humble pie. I'm hungry. Realistically, I predict Oregon winning eight or nine games this year, and probably ending up at the Holiday Bowl. But it is also very possible that, once again, the Civil War game will determine the Pac-10 champions. Other people, however, have drank the Oregon Kool-Aid and are going back for seconds: Lew Brannon at bleacherreport.com is predicting a rematch of Oregon-Ohio St., only this time in BCS Championship. He defends himself:

Oregon, on the other hand, is a bit of a wild-card pick (okay, very wild) and will surely wrinkle some eyebrows. Considering the loss of Jeremiah Masoli and his 28 touchdowns in 2009, many would say I'm crazy to have them pegged for Glendale.

Two words: Nate Costa. Oh, you've never heard of him?? Alright, I confess, I have only seen him throw a few passes myself, but word out of Eugene is that he is prepared for the task. He better be!

The good news for Costa is that he has LaMichael James behind him, and if Costa isn't good at anything else, he better be good at handing the rock to James, who will be a Heisman contender at year's end. Their only non-conference test is at Tennessee, which should be a relatively easy win, and the rest of the schedule sets up nicely to make a run.

I believe Costa will get the job done, and Oregon will be too balanced on offense, and solid enough on defense, to get through the regular season undefeated and finish at #2 in the BCS rankings.

Well, I don't know is Costa is that good, but the friendly vote of confidence is nice.

Of course, that's assuming that Costa will be Oregon's starting quarterback. As the Omaha World Herald reports, Costa will not only have to compete with sophomore Darron Thomas for the starting job, but also native Omahan and track-and-field champion Daryle Hawkins.


In the winter of 2009, [Chip] Kelly called Hawkins the night before signing day with a scholarship offer. The first-year head coach had a couple of openings and liked what he saw of Hawkins' tape.

An offer to play in Eugene trumped his plan to do both football and track at Northern Iowa.

“I didn't even really know I was on their map, to be honest,” Hawkins said. “I had no idea how serious they were.”



And how has Hawkins dealt with all of the fame and glory of playing in Eugene, Oregon?

“Every once in a while you have that moment,” Hawkins said. “I think sometimes, ‘If I was 10 years old, what would I think if someone told me I'd go through all this?' The first thing I'd ask would be ‘Why am I at Oregon?'”

Don't worry Daryle. Lots of people ask themselves that question all the time.

My Pac-10 picks, subject to change at any time and for any reason:

1) Oregon St. (10-2, 8-1) Rose
2) USC (11-2, 7-2) *
3) Oregon (9-3, 6-3) Holiday
4) Cal (8-4, 5-4) Sun
5) Stanford (8-4, 5-4) Las Vegas
6) Washington (7-5, 6-3) Emerald
7) Arizona (7-5, 4-5) Pointsettia
8) Arizona St. (4-8, 2-7)
9) UCLA (4-8, 2-7)
10) Washington St. (1-11, 0-9)


Post-Scripts: Really, though, Cleveland did have seven years. That's a long time.

1 comment:

Cab said...

could you explain the whole 'who's in the pack 10' and what's this other league thing with colorado and some other guys hunting for a home?