Stanford at Washington State
It has taken almost the entire season but Washington State is finally starting to look like the team we expected to see Week 1. At home in Pullman this past Saturday the Cougars led from start-to-finish in a 49-22 win against Stanford. Senior QB Anthony Gordon had a great game for the Cougars connecting on over 70% of his passes for 520 yards, 5 TD’s and 1 interception while Sophomore RB Max Borghi kicked in 111 yards, one receiving TD, and another score on 15 rushing attempts to add into the Total Offense of 631 yards. On the Stanford side Junior backup QB Davis Mills, in for an injured K. J. Costello, threw for almost as many yards as Gordon, connecting on 33-of-50 for a school record 504 yards and three TD’s, but also threw 2 picks on the Cardinal’s first two possessions of the 4th Qtr-both leading to Washington State TD’s.
With over 1,000 yards in the air thrown by the two QB’s in this game there were a number of WR’s on both sides that had great games including Stanford Junior WR Connor Wedington as well as Sophomore WR’s Michael Wilson and Semi Fehoko who combined for 325 yards and all three TD’s for the Cardinal. For Washington State, Senior WR’s Brandon Arconado and Easop Winston-Jr. and Junior WR Davontavean Martin hauled in passes totalling 331 yards and 4 of the 5 Cougar’s TD’s in the air. The whole Stanford season has been strange with this game maybe the strangest of all as Stanford rushed just 10 times the entire game for a grand total of 6 yards. You read that right-just 6 yards! Really? This from a Stanford team that normally has you trying to defend against a ground game led by RB’s like Toby Gerhart, Tyler Gaffney, Christian McCaffrey, or Bryce Love.
Stanford’s running game started to break down last year as the offensive line did an uncharacteristically poor job of run blocking that has extended into this year. In the air, they were expected to improve over the 250+ yards average per game they were allowing, but haven’t. Head Coach David Shaw finally gave up on the run late last year and went to a “pass first offense” that helped them win a few games at the end of the year-ending up in third place in the PAC-12 North. In this game against the Cougars he seems to have transitioned from pass first to pass only. Senior RB Cameron Scarlett was supposed to move into the Bryce Love spot this year and although not as fast was purported to be a more consistent between-the-tackles runner. Unfortunately it doesn’t matter how good you are if your line is doing a bad job of blocking and creating the space you need to run. Scarlett got a grand total of 3 yards on 4 attempts in this game.
In the past it was always Stanford with the most first downs, high 3rd down conversion %, and owning time of possession. But in this game it was completely reversed as Washington State had 10 more first downs, converted their 3rd down opportunities to the tune of 69% compared to 36% for Stanford, and had the ball almost eight minutes longer. What a year, USC is running the Air Raid Offense and Stanford seems to have abandoned the run. Prior to this year, under Head Coach David Shaw, they have averaged 10+ wins a year, won 75% of their games including three conference titles-ending up in the post season Top 20 six times, three times in the Top 10. But currently sitting at 111th out of 130 teams in the NCAA Division 1 FBS in points per game at 21.6 while allowing the opponents 28.9 it’s quite probable that Stanford won’t be playing in a post season bowl this year.
Washington State, sitting at 5-5, needs one more victory to get into a post season bowl game and will try to get it this coming Saturday at home against Oregon State, also at 5-5 overall. With the Cougars scheduled to play their in-state rival Washington Huskies on the Friday after Thanksgiving, in their last game of the year, and the Beavers in the same situation having to play the Ducks, both team’s best opportunity to make it into the post season is this coming Saturday against each other. Stanford heads home needing to win their last two games and will take on Cal at 1:00pm on the PAC12 Network this coming Saturday, November 23rd, before hosting No. 15 Notre Dame the following Saturday.
USC at Cal
Regardless of what happens at USC after the season is over and the dust settles, whomever emerges as the Trojan’s Head Coach is going to inherit a really good QB in Freshman Kedon Slovis. In their game on the road against Cal this past Saturday Slovis completed 29-of-35 for 400+ yards, 4 TD’s, and no interceptions. On the year he has completed 70% of his passes, 223-of-315, for 2,727 yards and 24 TD’s against 9 interceptions. His stats Saturday were against what was supposed to be according to the AP recap a, “stingy pass defense.” That seemed to go unnoticed to WR’s Michael Pittman Jr., Freshman Drake London and Sophomore Amon-Ra St. Brown who collectively pulled in 376 of those yards as well as a score a piece. In USC’s version of the Air Raid Offense in this game the numbers looked more like what you might see from Washington State as the Trojans had 406 yards in the air and just 56 yards from their rushing game. But it worked beautifully in an easy 41-17 victory over the Cal Bears on the road in Berkelely.
The Bears have lost five of their last six games after starting the year off 4-0 and beating No. 14 Washington at the time as well as traveling back into SEC country to take down Ole Miss-a beginning to the season that had them up to No. 15 on the AP Poll before they started a downward spiral that culminated with a 35-0 beatdown by Utah. And although they won against the Cougars last week and Mike Leach, who was one of the original developers of the Air Raid Offense, they couldn’t seem to handle it two weeks in a row. But let’s face it, USC has far better receivers than the Cougars-far better receivers than most teams in the country. Considering that Slovis is a Freshman and two of the three guys hauling down the most passing yards in this game will be back next year, the Trojans look like a team on the upswing if they can just beef up the oline, improve on their run defense, and learn from their mistakes in the secondary this year.
With Cal’s QB Devon Modster connecting on just half of his throws for less than 100 yards and two interceptions and QB Chase Garbers, back from injury and doing even worse, the only star of the night on offense for the Bears was Junior RB Deshawn Collins who rushed for 103 yards on 15 attempts scoring Cal’s only two TD’s of the game. Cal’s star Senior LB Evan Weaver and Junior LB Kuony Deng did what they could against the USC offense with 25 tackles collectively as well as 8 and 4 solo tackles respectively, but those were pretty much the only highlights from the Cal Defense as most of the action happened downfield where they didn’t seem to have a clue.
With the Trojans holding the tie-breaker against Utah they are not out of the running in the South yet, but trail by a game and will need to get some help from one of two unlikely sources, Arizona or Colorado-both sitting at the bottom of the PAC-12 South and both scheduled to play Utah in the last two games of the season. Besides that of course USC needs to continue to win which won’t be easy as they’ll host their cross town rival UCLA this coming Saturday, November 23rd, at 12:30pm on ABC. UCLA got the best of the Trojan’s in 2018, Chip Kelly’s first year, and if Dorian Thompson-Robinson plays well and USC’s defense against the run stays as porous as it has been you can expect to see a lot of Bruin Senior RB Joshua Kelley who is just 61 yards shy of 1,000 on the year.
As far as Cal goes they’ll need to win one of their last two remaining games, both on the road, against either Stanford this coming Saturday at 1:00pm on the PAC12 Network or against UCLA in the Rose Bowl on Saturday, November 30th.
Arizona at Oregon
Justin Herbert, Oregon’s Senior QB, who is on everyone’s list to get picked in the first round of next year’s NFL Draft, had another stellar game this past Saturday in an easy 34-6 win over Arizona at home in Eugene. Enjoying the victory but looking back at how far the team has come since their last place finish in 2016 Herbert noted that; “It’s really cool . . . it’s a sign of all the hard work that we’ve put in, and it’s a great opportunity for us.” The Ducks scored a TD on every other possession in the first half and could have had three more points except for a missed give-me 20 yard field goal on the Arizona 2 yard line early in the 2nd Qtr, ending up going in ahead 21-6 at the break. Herbert connected on 20-of-28 for 333 yards and 4 TD’s spread out to a committee of separate WR’s and TE’s. The Ducks also picked up 138 yards and a TD on 39 rushing attempts for a Total Offense of 471 yards compared to 240 yards for Arizona.
As far as the Wildcats goes, If not for Junior Place Kicker Lucas Havrisik they would have been shut-out completely. But, as it was, he was able to get two field goals up and over within the last three minutes of the first half-the 2nd one with time expiring-to give Arizona what turned out to be their only points of the game. Once again playing both QB’s, Greg Gunnell and Kahlil Tate together were 17-of-30 for just 132 yards and no scores. Considering that Oregon sacked the QB’s six times it’s amazing that neither one threw an interception all night long. As far as the Wildcat’s running game goes, it was equally anemic and unable to produce points on the board while collectiing 108 yards on 39 attempts-less than 2 yards per carry.
As noted by the AP in their recap of the game; “The Ducks, ranked sixth in both the College Football Playoff rankings and the AP Top 25, haven’t dropped a game since the season-opening loss to Auburn.” That’s a loss that will haunt them until the end of the season and the selection of the CFP final four. Oregon hits the road to play the Arizona State Sun Devils in Tempe this coming Saturday, November 23rd, at 4:30pm on ABC. As far as there being any chance of them losing that game Head Coach Mario Cristobal was quoted after the win as saying; “The best part about it is our guys still feel like we haven’t played our best football,” yikes! Arizona needs to win their last two games to become bowl eligible and have a very difficult hill to climb to make that happen as they’ll be hosting No. 7 Utah Saturday at 7:00pm on FS1.
UCLA at Utah
Up through the 1st Qtr and three minutes into the 2nd it looked as though UCLA was going to be able to hang with Utah. Only down by four points, 7-3, and lined up to cut that lead to just one, UCLA Place Kicker J.J. Molson came out to attempt a 42 yard field goal from Utah’s 24 yard line. He had already made a 43 yard field goal from Utah’s 25 yard line on UCLA’s 1st possession of the game. But this one missed and that miss was like a starting pistol in a track meet for Utah who went on a 21 point scoring spree during the remainder of the 2nd Qtr in addition to adding another 21 points on top of that after the break in a total 49-3 domination of the Bruins-putting to bed any notion that anyone but Utah is going to represent the South in the PAC-12 Championship.
As if Utah needed any help UCLA lost the ball five times, three leading to TD’s with one, a fumble returned for TD at the Utah 12 yard line late in the 2nd Qtr with Utah only up 14-3 and UCLA in the Red Zone threatening to cut that lead to just four points. But Utah’s Mika Tafua not only ran that fumble back 68 yards to the house, the Utes scored again on a 38 yard run by Zack Moss to make it 28-3 with just 26 seconds left before the break. Having won the toss and deferring to the 2nd Half, Utah got the ball first after the break and in just three plays scored again on a 69 yard pass from Tyler Huntley putting Utah up 35-3. What’s that old saying; “The flogging will continue until morale improves.” It was a beat down that didn’t stop until with almost 6 minutes remaining in the game, right after another defensive three-and-out, Utah got the ball and decided enough was enough and ate up the clock without scoring.
Interestingly enough Utah only had one more first down in the game than UCLA, 19-18, but the Total Offense wasn’t even close with the Utes collecting 536 yards to the Bruins 269 with the most glaring difference being in the ground game where on 37 attempts UCLA gained a total of just 50 yards. They would have had more but as the AP noted in their recap; The Bruins finished with 50 rushing yards after losing 81 total yards on sacks and tackles for loss.” Speaking of those Utah was in Thompson-Robinson’s face all night and recorded 5 sacks and 10 tackles for loss.
Tyler Huntley had a great game for Utah connecting on over 75% of his pass attempts for 335 yards, 2 TD’s, and no interceptions while the Ute’s greatest rusher in the history of the program showed everyone why with 127 yards and 2 TD’s on just 17 attempts-an average of 7.5 yards a carry. Sophomore Tight End Brant Kuithe was the recipient of most of Huntley’s passing yards with 132 on just 5 receptions but Junior WR Samson Nacua gets the prize for longest TD, an 83 yarder on his only catch of the day. On the other side UCLA QB Dorian Thompson-Robinson connected on less than half of his attempts for 219 yards, no TD’s and 2 interceptions. UCLA RB Joshua Kelley actually rushed for 78 yards on 19 carries, but once the lost rushing yards are added in they lose 28 of those. Freshman WR Kyle Philips and Junior TE Devin Asiasi were the recipients of 70+% of the total yards in the air for the Bruins, but no one could find the end zone.
The Bruins need to win their last two games to become bowl eligible and will face their cross-town rivals, USC, in the first of those two must win games. Last year Chip Kelley pulled it off and beat the Trojans in the Rose Bowl. Can they do it again? We’ll find out this coming Saturday, November 23rd, at 12:30pm on ABC. As for Utah, it’s business as usual as they’ll hit the road toward warmer climate to play the Arizona Wildcats.
Arizona State at Oregon State
There’s an old saying that you go for the tie at home and the win on the road-an old saying that 65 year old Arizona State Head Coach Herm Edwards apparently believes in. Trailing by one point, 35-34, after scoring a TD on QB Jayden Daniels’ pass to Brandon Aiyuk with less than two minutes left, the Sun Devils went for a two point conversion and the win on the road at Oregon State. Daniels pitched the ball to their star RB Eno Benjamin who found no room to run and attempted a pass into the end zone that was intercepted by Oregon State Cornerback Nahshon Wright And just like that the Beavers had five wins on the year, just one win shy of bowl eligibility after being 1-11 in 2017 prior to Head Coach Jonathan Smith’s arrival. They still need to win one more game which will be hard to come by as they face the Washington State Cougars, also in search of their sixth game, and the Oregon Ducks-both on the road. Smith is one or two recruiting classes shy of having the size he needs to improve their defense, but if they can recruit the players they need it looks as though Oregon State could be a force to be reckoned with.
With the Beavers scoring on their first possession of the game, an 80 yard drive culminated by a Jake Luton pass to Freshman WR Jesiah Irish, it always seemed as though the Sun Devils were in catch-up mode which they did three times at 7, 14, and then again on an Oregon State punt returned for TD to tie the score at 21-21 with just four minutes left in the 2nd Qtr. But, on their subsequent possession Oregon State took the lead back on an 8 play 72 yard drive resulting in a 4 yard TD run by RB Jermar Jefferson and a 28-21 lead at the break.
The action slowed down at the start of the 2nd half with five three-and-outs in a row. But about half-way through the 3rd Qtr, followed by an Oregon State sack of Sun Devils’ QB Jayden Daniels and recovery of the ball at the Arizona State 36 yard line, the Beavers scored again on a Jake Luton pass complete to Senior Tight End Noah Togiai for a 35-21 lead. However, similar to the first half, the Sun Devils came right back on a 6 play 82 yard drive in under 2 minutes to score again on an 8 yard TD pass from Jayden Daniels to Senior WR Kyle Williams to get back within a single possession, 35-28, with just over two minutes left in the 3rd Qtr.
They kept each other close but didn’t help themselves when over the next four possessions both teams fumbled the ball, neither of which led to a score for either team. But, after forcing an Oregon State punt on their 2nd possession of the 4th Qtr, Arizona State scored at the end of an 11 play 90 yard drive on another Jayden Daniels TD pass, this time to Senior WR Brandon Aiyuk to make it 35-34 and set up the two-point conversion for the win that failed.
Both signal callers did a great job with Arizona State Freshman QB Jayden Daniels connecting on 24-of-36 for 334 yards, 3 TD’s and no interceptions. While Senior QB Jake Luton passed for almost 50 yards less for Oregon State he was more efficient, connecting on over 75% of his passes and one more score for a total of 288 yad, 4 TD’s, and no picks. Both QB’s spread the wealth around as all 7 TD’s collectively were caught by seven different players although Oregon State had a more receiver by committee approach than Arizona State whose WR Brandon Aiyuk collected more than half of the total thrown by Daniels for 173 yards on 10 receptions.
Neither side really pushed the running game super hard, rushing just enough to keep the defense honest. For Arizona State their talented Junior RB Eno Benjamin picked up a TD on the ground as well as rushed for all but four of their total of 74 yards. On the Oregon State side Senior RB Artavis Pierce and Sophomore RB Jermar Jefferson carried the ball collectively 30 times for 1 TD and 95 yards of the Beavers’ total 105 yards on the ground. Both pass rushing defenses got to the QB a bit with Arizona State collecting 3 sacks and 7 tackles for loss while Oregon State recorded 4 sacks and 8 tackles for loss. There was only 15 yards difference in Total Offense but the Beavers were able to collect six more first downs, the result of doing a better job of converting on third down which lead to possession of the ball for almost nine more minutes.
Last year Arizona State was in the position of having to beat their instate rival Arizona to become bowl eligible in what is known as the Territorial Cup which has been played 92 times since 1899 with Arizona leading the series 49-42. With just 5 wins and No. 6 Oregon up next on their schedule this coming Saturday, November 23rd, at 4:30pm on ABC, it looks as though they’ll be in the same position this year. Oregon State needs one more as well as will face off against Washington State, also in need of a win, in Pullman at 6:00pm on the PAC12 Network.