Utah at Stanford
After losing to an unranked Stanford team earlier in the season Oregon, who finallly made it back into the national playoff picture with a No. 4 ranking on the recently released CFP Poll, must have really hated the result of this game. Utah scored so often in the first two quarters that half-time wasn’t a long enough rest and they took the enire third quarter off as well. Normally I’d find fault, but they were back at it with another 14 points in the 4th Qtr to go along with the 38 they scored before the break to finish off a 52-7 shellacking of Stanford. Stanford did beat Oregon—right?
Remember last week when Utah Sophomore RB Tavion Thomas ran 24 times for 160 yards and 4 TD’s against UCLA. Well, this week he only ran 20 times for 177 yards and four more TD’s—unbelievable! Not only that, but the Utes had two more guys that rushed for over 100 yards each while also scoring TD’s. Freshman RB Micah Bernard picked up 110 yards on 12 attempts while Junior RB TJ Pledger just needed 4 attempts to pick up 107 yards including a school record 96 yard run. All together Utah rushed 46 times for 441 yards and 6 TD’s, an average of 9.5 yards per carry.
Utah’s Sophomore QB Cameron Rising connected on 13-of-22 for 140 yards. He didn’t score but he didn’t throw any picks either, unlike his counterpart Stanford Senior QB Jack West who connected on 12-of-18 for just 59 yards, no scores, but one interception. That’s a completion average that computes to 66.6666666—you know those numbers Gregory Peck was looking to find embedded in the head of his Devil spawned son Damien! Well, for Stanford this was the game from Hell and West was lucky he didn’t throw more picks as the Utah defense sacked him five times. They also picked up 15 tackles for loss which explains the meager 82 yard rushing total for the Cardinal on 31 carries with their sole TD of the day actually coming from their backup Senior QB Isaiah Sanders who was in for a few snaps. Actually he’s the back-up to the back-up as their starting QB Tanner McKee was out injured. Would that have made a difference—maybe a little. But him playing doesn’t stop the Utah running game or the Utah defense.
All kinds of records in this one in addition to Pledger’s 96 yard run. Thomas matched the school record for most rushing TD’s in a game that he set last week against the Bruins. As the AP noted in their recap for ESPN; “Utah outgained Stanford 440-28 in taking a 38-0 halftime lead for the second highest yardage discrepancy in the first half of an FBS game in the past seven seasons [and] the Cardinal . . . suffered their most lopsided loss since a 57-7 defeat to Notre Dame in 2003.” After the game Stanford Head Coach—for now—David Shaw was quoted as saying; “Just a terrible showing top-to-bottom. Obviously we missed some guys who aren’t out there . . . Defensively we have to have a lot of discussions on how to stop the run.” You think! It seemed like your entire offensive and defensive lines were missing in this one. You did beat Oregon–right—how the hell did that happen? Figure it out and replicate it!
The way things are looking right now Oregon will get a chance to avenge that loss against Stanford, in a fashion, as they will meet up with Utah on Saturday, November 20th, in Rice-Ecceles Stadium, Salt Lake City. Before that the Utes will travel to warmer climate this coming weekend to take on an Arizona team that finally broke their losing streak with a 10-3 win over Cal. Stanford will travel to Corvallis to take on an Oregon State team that should have become bowl eligible this past Saturday against Colorado but couldn’t get it done. With their game after that against No. 8 Notre Dame, look for Oregon State to put it all on the line this coming Saturday.
Cal at Arizona
Is it possible that instead of coming into this game planning to win against an Arizona team with the nation’s longest losing streak that Cal came in with a mindset of not to lose instead? I don’t mean that the coaches planned not to win, I’m sure they did. But some of the players must have thinking, “just don’t lose!” Whatever the Bears were thinking it didn’t pan out, losing to Arizona 10-3. Cal hasn’t exactly been hitting on all cylinders this year but they did come into this contest averaging 176 yards rushing and 247 yards passing per game. Against Cal they passed for 94 yards and rushed for 28 and as you can tell from the final score the only player that put up points on the board for the Bears was their Sophomore Place Kicker Nick Lopez who connected on one for 34 yards with just two minutes left in the 3rd Qtr. Other than that, the guy collecting the most yards for the team was Cal Senior Punter Jamieson Sheahan who came up to bat 11 times for 518 with a long of 57 and a net average of 45.
For the Wildcats they didn’t fair any better in the air. Oh, their Freshman QB Will Plummer picked up a few more yards, 129, but between him and Sophomore QB Luke Ashworth they tossed up 3 interceptions without a single passing TD between them. Their ground game by committee was much more effective as they rushed 52 times for 202 yards and 1 TD by Sophomore RB Michael Wiley. Their Freshman Place Kicker one-up’d his counterpart with a field goal and an extra point. But that was all the scoring—and amazingly that’s all the scoring that was needed to win. As the AP pointed out in their recap for ESPN; “Arizona [holding an] opponent without a touchdown [is] the first time since a 35-0 victory over Northern Arizona in the 2013 season opener.
Well, that’s what happened, but let’s discuss why it happened. The Thursday before game day Cal announced that Senior QB Chase Garbers along with 7 other starters and 24 other players and coaches were in Covid protocols and unavailable for the game against Arizona. With Garbers being the total offense leader in the PAC12 and his back-up not having taken even one snap in a game this year definitely put Cal at a distinct disadvantage. Even the three points they did get was from the back-up place kicker. It’s going to be a tough road for the Bears to become bowl eligible as they currently sit at 3-6 overall with just three games left to get six wins. They’ll take it a game at a time starting this Saturday at home against USC.
Oregon State at Colorado
I came into this game thinking that Oregon State was going to finally become bowl eligible after a long multi-year grind by head coach Jonathan Smith to elevate the program. But then Colorado got out front to start with and the Beavers ended up trying to catch up all game long until they finally did on an improbable school record 60 yard field goal to tie the score at 34 a piece as time ran out. It was a sign—they were destined to win—but they didn’t, losing a heartbreaker to the Buffaloes, 37-34, and still one game short of bowl eligibility. The Beavers will need to beat either Stanford, Arizona State, or Oregon starting with the Cardinal at home this coming Saturday in order to make it to the post season.
The usual suspects provided most of Oregon State’s yards and points with Sophomore QB Chance Nolan connecting on 20-of-38 for 255 yards, 1 TD to Junior WR Tre’Shaun Harrison, and 1 pick that didn’t amount to anything. On the ground it was BJ Baylor picking up almost half of the Beavers 220 yards on the ground as well as a rushing TD to go along with two others by Sophomore RB Trey Lowe and Junior LB Jack Colletto. In the end it was Sophomore Place Kicker Everett Hayes who kicked a miraculous 60 yard field goal to get them into overtime but missed one from 38 yards in the 2nd overtime that ended the Beaver’s hope this past week of getting that sixth win.
On the ground it was Colorado’s brilliant Sophomore RB Jarek Broussard that did the bulk of their work with 24 carries for 151 of the team’s 222 yards rushing. But the game ball for the Buffaloes has to go to Freshman QB Brendon Lewis who had a hand in all four of their TD’s. In a productive effort, Lewis not only rushed for a TD but connected on over 60% of his passes for 170 yards, 3 TD’s to three different receivers, and no interceptions—with no TD more important than the 16 yard pass to Montana Lemonious-Craig that put Colorado up 27-24 with just under three minutes to play.
The end of the game was something else as described by the Denver Post: “The Buffs led 27-24. The game appeared to be over. But, as time expired, Hayes booted his 60-yard field goal to send the game into overtime. His kick tied Mason Crosby for the longest field goal in Folsom Field history. Crosby connected from 60 yards against Iowa State on Oct. 16, 2004. On the first possession of overtime, CU freshman quarterback Brendan Lewis turned a quarterback keeper into a 9-yard touchdown. He barely made it into the corner of the end zone. Oregon State countered with B.J. Baylor’s 2-yard touchdown to send the game into the second overtime.” Hayes who missed that field goal in the 2nd overtime made me think of that old Wide World of Sports saying, “the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.”
Oregon State has lost two games in a row that if it wasn’t for their defense they should have won and Jonathan Smith didn’t waste any time afterwards in firing Defensive Coordinator Tim Tibesar. As John Canzano, in his recap of the game for OregonLive pointed out, the late Bum Phillips had it figured out when he said; “There’s two kinds of coaches, them that’s fired and them that’s gonna be fired.” Don’t start thinking that Smith has been throwing people under the bus the whole four years he’s been there in order to keep his own job because this is the first person that he’s fired and it was well deserved. As Canzano pointed out; “Two weeks ago Tibesar’s defense gave up 39 points in a puzzling loss at Cal. Seven days later later Colorado’s offense posted a season-high 37 points.” Assistant Trent Bray will take over until the end of the year until a new permanent defensive coordinator can be named.
As far as a new defensive coordinator goes, how about an old one? That’s what Canzano suggests while promoting Nick Aliotti, considered one of the premier college defensive minds for decades. As he points out, the Beavers don’t have time for a growth project. Currently working as a PAC-12 Network Analyst Aliotti scouts and game-plans all the team’s offenses. When contacted by Canzano Aliotti had this advice regarding what they should be looking for; “great communicator . . . great teacher . . . great energy . . . someone with experience.” If you don’t remember, Aliotti was the defensive coordinator for Oregon in Chip Kelly’s heyday and if Smith could get him even as a consultant until the end of the year the improvement would be palpable.
But Oregon’s State failures aside, props to Colorado for hanging in there and pulling this one out and as head coach Karl Dorrell said afterwards; ““Whew … what a game. I felt like our team grew up a little bit today. They rose to the circumstances and they didn’t panic. We’ll see where it takes us.” As far as where it’s taking them in the near future, that would be to sunny Southern California where they will take on UCLA in the Rose Bowl. For Oreogn State, they’ll be heading home to see if they can finally get over that bowl eligibility hump against Stanford.