(Written by kencraw)

It’s a new morning and for some reason things feel surprisingly sane. The Bears have struggled on the road in non-conference. The Bears have struggled against a quirky offense. Everything feels surprisingly normal. But you know what? I’m pretty happy with the current Cal Bear Football Normal. It’s a lot better than the pre-Tedford normal.

In any case, with the non-conference slate behind us it’s time to focus on conference play, and what better way to do that than watching the rest of the conference play football all day? Come back throughout the day for my thoughts on the games today:

• Boy, at first it looked like Nebraska was just going to destroy Washington, I mean, they OWNED the line of scrimmage on those first two TD drives. But with Washington having a good drive of their own and now playing Nebraska straight up since then, this 14-7 Nebraska lead is not so big. I still get the feeling Nebraska wins. They’ll wear Washington down.
• USC and Minnesota are playing a pretty straight up game. USC seems to have a slight physical edge. But USC’s defense still looks like it’s got too many holes and it could be that as even as things are now, a few defensive mistakes could cost USC the game. (Current score: 7-7)
• Oh wow. Apparently I’m watching the wrong game. ASU is up 7-3 over Wisconsin mid-2nd quarter. I thought for sure that one was going to be a blowout. Switching to ESPN2…
• Looks like the power teams are starting to (re)assert themselves with USC on top 13-7 and Nebraska adding a 3rd TD to go up 21-7.
• Halftime scores: USC is holding their 13-7 lead. Nebraska added a long TD drive and Washington got a fumble recovery for a short TD drive, 28-14 Neb. Wisconsin is starting to impose their will on ASU, and are now up 13-10 over ASU. And no on TV (at least with my sat package) SMU and WSU are tied at the half at 14. That’s a better performance than I expected.
• Boy, what a shootout in Seattle. After trading touchdowns in the 1st minute of the 2nd half (one read-option run by Neb, one long pass by UW) Neb added 2 TD’s, one long run, one INT for a touchdown. This one’s out of hand: 49-21 Nebraska. I’m switching back to the other two where USC’s added two field goals to be up 19-13 and ASU and Wisconsin are all tied at 13.
• USC is asserting itself more against Minnesota, up now 33-14 with dominating line play. ASU continues to play it close. They gave up one score and are down 13-20, but it’s been a stalemate the last few possessions. They’re really the positive surprise in the Pac-10 so far, particularly now that WSU is down 14-28 to SMU.
• The Oregon State game is underway against Louiville. I sure hope they represent the Pac-10 well. We need all the help we can get right now. Between Cal, WSU, and UW, the Pac-10 has not represented very well so far. They’re up 7-0 and will soon be my 2nd active game now that USC is putting things away.
• ASU continues to hang tough with a nice TD drive that would have tied it if the extra point hadn’t been blocked. What a tough blow. ASU’s new QB Threet is pretty darned good. Looks like ASU might be the upside surprise of the conference. Still down by 1 point, 19-20 with 4 minutes left.
• In other games, Oregon is off to a fast start, up 21-0 just 5 minutes in. OSU still has a TD lead 14-7, unfortunately I don’t have that one on TV either. And the UW game is just as out of hand as before.
• Well, that extra point sunk ASU, losing 19-20 (they never got the ball back), but look out for them. I’m thankful we get them in Berkeley. USC finished off thier 32-21 win, Minnesota getting a too-little-too-late TD. Nebraska finished off their 56-21 blowout. Huskies offense looked like it had potential, but the defense looks pretty bad. WSU couldn’t rebound either, losing 21-35. In progress we have Oregon State up 21-14 at the half. They’re getting significantly outgained on the ground, so that could be trouble later, but the Beavers do get the ball to start the 2nd half. Oregon continues to roll. Not sure why they’re stalled at 21-0, but does it really matter? Unfortunately neither of these two games are on TV. We do have a slate of 3 games on TV tonight. Houston at UCLA, Wake Forrest at Stanford and Iowa at Arizona. So while we started off the day rough at 1-3 (1-4 if you include the Friday night disaster), the record will likely improve with some better matchups and ones at home. I’d bet $20 that ASU would have won their game at home. They came up just short on the road and were mistake prone. They really shoulda won that game.
• The afternoon games both went the Pac-10’s way. Oregon demolished Portland State, of course, 69-0. I think I predicted 63-0, so nothing unexpected there. Of course this game doesn’t mean much, but they’re definitely firing on all cylinders and are without a doubt the top of the conference until proven otherwise. Oregon State opened up a 3 TD lead and then let Louisville back into it, but managed to hold on 35-28. Not as convincing a win as I’d like and it doesn’t bode well for their trip to the Potato Patch next Saturday, but a win is a win.
• We’ve learned two things tonight in the Iowa at Arizona game: 1. Iowa is over-rated. I’m sorry #9 teams don’t make the sort of mistakes they’re making tonight. 2. Arizona has a lot of intensity and their fans are matching that intensity. I’m not yet sold on the quality of either team and I’ve seen a lot of sloppy play in the 1st half. Foles has been pretty good as has the Arizona run defense, but other than that, this doesn’t feel like the matchup of 2 ranked teams.
• The big surprise to me of the night is UCLA absolutely owning Houston. 21-3 at the half. The big question mark is how good is Houston, but it may be that UCLA’s demise was too anxiously announced.
• The Stanford vs. Wake Forrest game has been pretty ho-hum, with Stanford playing physical and winning and Wake Forrest not playing horribly but not exactly keeping pace. Luck continues to be the most over-rated QB in the conference and is getting bailed out over and over by his receivers with his off-target passes. Then he’s missing plenty of others. Don’t get me wrong, he’s obviously a Pac-10 quality QB, but he’s not “the nation’s best” or whatever the latest platitude some ignorant announcer has been throwing his way.
• Boy, that Arizona/Iowa game was a crazy one. After a sloppy and slow 3rd quarter that about put me to sleep, Iowa closed the gap to 21-27 and then picked off a pass by getting Foles to channel his inner Longshore. But they missed the extra point to leave it tied and the let Arizona get down the field WAY too easy to score a touchdown. Once the crowd and defense was re-energized, they shut Iowa down for the 34-27 win. So that’s a good one for the Pac-10 but also in a way that leaves me optimistic that Arizona is a team that can be beat. They had 20 points off of turnovers and minus their run defense, looked a bit sloppy.
• UCLA finished out their dominating performance over Houston, although they played the 2nd half near even, final score: 31-13
• Stanford put the accelerator down and is in beat-down mode, the current score being 68-24.
• Overall the Pac-10 recovered well today with Washington being the lone sore point. It would have been nice to see them be more competitive. Across the rest of the conference, minus WSU, everyone represented well. The only problem is that half the country was already in bed for the strong half of the performance.

And with that, I’m calling it a night.