Pac Ten Lessons: Week 1
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by The Beast
1. Cal is Certainly a National Title Contender One year ago, the California Golden Bears were destroyed by Tennessee in Knoxville. One year later, the Bears returned the favor by winning 45-31 at home. The victory over Tennessee proved to the nation that the Bears can win a national title in 2007 due to a newfound toughness. Last year, Cal was pushed around by more physical teams such as Tennessee and USC, but last night, they were the more physical team.
Whenever the Bears needed some short yards in the trenches, running back Justin Forsett delivered just that. Nothing against Marshawn Lynch but Forsett appears to be a lot more physical runner than Lynch ever was. The defensive line did an excellant job getting pressure on Tennessee's Erik Ainge and stopping the running game, despite being a lot smaller than Tennessee's bigger offensive line.
2. The conference is really deep this year Cal and USC aren't the only teams that can play as both UCLA and Arizona State looked dominant in big victories over Stanford and San Jose State. Playing at home, the Sun Devils racked up 520 total yards of offense. Unlike the Dirk Koetter days, it was a balanced attack with 250 rushing yards and 270 passing yards. What was most impressive was the improvement of Rudy Carpenter who looked much more confident than he did a year ago, completing 14 out of 20 passes and throwing for 197 yards, two touchdowns, and no interceptions. It appears as if Erickson has the Sun Devils back on track to becoming a contender for the Pac Ten title.
While they only played Stanford, UCLA still looked much improved. It appears as if their offense may have cought up to their defense as the Bruins totlaed 624 yards of total offense. Quarterback Ben Olson, especially, looked impressive as he completed 16 of 29 passes for 286 yards and five touchdowns, which equaled his total number of touchdown passes from last season. The rushing attack, which totaled 338 yards on the ground, was led by Kahlil Bell who had 196 of his own.
3. That Jake Locker is the real deal Washington quarterback Jake Locker's performance on Friday night against Syracuse may have had the best debut of any freshmen signal caller that I have ever seen. He did have some first game jitters early on but those soon went away. Despite some bad field position early on, Locker led the Huskies on some long scoring drives, reminding some fans of former Husky great Marques Tuiasosopo. Locker looked like a seasoned veternan, which makes him even more scary for opposing teams. Not to put any presure on this kid, but he might in fact be the savior of the program.
4. The Trojans were really, really conservative With a trip to Nebraska in two weeks and with a bunch of young freshmen and sophomores starting. It seemed as if Carroll and the Trojans were a lot more conservative than usual on offense and defense. The majority of offensive plays were basic handoffs to all of the Trojans' ten million running backs. It really seemed as if the coaching staff didn't want to show too much to the Cornhuskers. They were even more on defense. The Trojans' rarely blitzed a linebacker or a saftey. Most of the defenseive formations were standard cover two sets. After the game on the radio, Carroll was interviews saying that he called a simple game because he didn't want to overwelm his young starters. He did forget to mention that he also didn't want to show the Huskers anything special.
5. Alex Brink is still inconsistent Since Alex Brink will statistically become Washington State's all-time leading passer this season, it doesn't seem unreasonable to expect that he would be a lot better. For the most part, Brink has always been either hot or cold with the trend continueing on Saturday against Wisconsin. While going 17-for-27 isn't all that bad, Brink still missed more than a couple of open guys that could have been big plays. The Cougars will go as Brink goes and that will vary from game to game
