(Written by kencraw)

Here are my thoughts on the competition across the conference:

1. Stanford at Oregon:
   • Stanford had a lot of trouble running between the tackles, which was very surprising considering that their whole schtick is about the power running game.
   • Luck looked brilliant in the 1st half and downright mediocre in the 2nd half as Oregon ramped up the pressure. While he impressed me in the first half, my overall feeling is still that he’s an over appreciated QB and Cal’s strategy in the 2009 Big Game will work again in 2010: Rattle him early and often.
   • Oregon’s offense continues to look awesome. If someone beats Oregon this year it will come down to whoever can slow their offense down, which considering how they like to run the up-tempo game, will only happen with a team that both comes with a great defensive effort AND does a lot of ball control to keep the Oregon offense off the field.
   • Darren Thomas is FAR further along in his progression as a QB than either of Oregon’s previous QB’s. Both Dixon and Masoli took a whole year to “get” the offense and have both the running and throwing skills to make it work. Thomas is probably their best QB yet.
   • Oregon’s defense on the other hand, looked exposable, particularly in the 1st half. I must admit they definitely dialed it up a notch in the 2nd half and looked pretty strong, but I think that was in part because they figured out Luck’s schtick and brought the heat.
   • Boiling it down for the Bears, I have lots of hope the Bears can beat Stanford in the Big Game, but beating Oregon is going to be quite a struggle unless they have road issues this year.
2. Washington at USC:
   • Let their be no mistake, USC is downright mediocre. This wasn’t a great
     performance by UW nor was Locker some unstoppable force. I guarantee you that USC doesn’t give up that game winning FG drive at the end of the game back when Carroll is coach. Heck, if UW doesn’t get conservative once in FG range, they easily score a TD on that drive.
   • This wasn’t like last year’s game where USC was without their star QB or anything like that. USC had all the pieces and stunk anyway.
   • USC got lucky in the 2nd quarter when a good forced fumble turned into a touch-back isntead of the TD for UW it was about to be because the refs made a bad call. While you can’t blame the on-the-field refs for making a tough call about whether the ball crossed the goal-line inside the pilon and it’s understandable that the replay refs didn’t overturn it because the one good angle was obscured by Locker’s body, I can guarantee you that ball did not go inside the pilon. This was a pivotal moment in the game and USC might have lost a blowout if it wasn’t for this lucky break.
   • I’ve got a lot more hope than a week ago that the Bears can go down to the LA Coliseum and beat USC and I still think the Bears will lay waste to UW when they come to Berkeley at the end of the season.
3. WSU at UCLA:
   • I didn’t see this game, but based on the stats and drive log UCLA’s secondary got exposed and that’s why the game was closer than expected. Riley’s performance is going to be key because we’re not going to win this one on the ground. Their rush defense continues to look stingy.
   • On the flip side, UCLA is getting rolling with their Pistol offense running game. 437 yards of rushing!?! This doesn’t worry me much though. I don’t think it was the fundamentals of the Pistol that got the Bears, it was the particulars of how well Nevada ran it. UCLA doesn’t have the personnel or the experience to do what Nevada did.
   • For those who don’t know, WSU was down 14-20 at halftime and scored two TD’s to have a 28-20 mid-3rd quarter lead before UCLA rattled off 3 TD’s including a 2-point conversion on their 1st to tie the game at the end of the 3rd quarter. The final score doesn’t well indicate just how close it was.
   • Also for those who don’t know, Prince didn’t play due to injury, it was backup Richard Brehaut who was executing the offense, but he didn’t rush much. It was the two running backs who did the damage. Prince will be back for the Cal game, or at least that’s the way it looks.
   • As for WSU, while they’re not as improved as I thought, they’ve clearly got more heart than last year and I still think they’ll pull an upset or two just to make the conference more interesting. The Bears need to be ready to play a good game up on the frozen potato patch (not to be confused with the frozen tundra).
4. ASU at OSU:
   • Arizona State might be undefeated right now if their QB wasn’t so mistake prone. Threet has the look of a very good QB, but he throws interceptions like they’re going out of style. 3 against OSU and FOUR against Oregon.
   • The other reason ASU keeps losing games is their penalties, although they did better versus OSU.
   • Overall I think ASU is a dangerous team in that they’re going to put together a couple of complete games and beat some teams that will look like head scratchers when all is said and done. All you can do is hope they don’t bring that game against your team. At the same time, they’re inconsistency is their downfall.
   • OSU continues to be an enigma to me. How good is Boise? How good is TCU? Can they put a win together when the other team isn’t mistake prone? I’d sure love for the Bears to play them sooner rather than later, because as always you get the feeling they’re slowly putting it together and are going to be tough to beat in Corvallis in November (well, two days from it, anyway).

Go Bears!