Two weeks in, the broad generalization is that it could be a down year for a conference normally in the discussion for best in the country. There are still teams we know very little about, specifically Oregon and Washington, but some of the early results by much of the conference doesn’t trend to anything nice. At any rate, on with Week Two’s lessons.
1. Maybe it’s better to air your dirty football laundry early?
There are two lines of thinking with early season tilts … schedule some patsies to boot around and gain self-confidence, or play the best, possibly get steamrolled, and find the flies in the ointment earlier rather than later. Well, after a tumultuous week of practice following game where USC put up as much fight as grass does to a mower against Alabama, the Trojans smoked Utah State (I know, different level of competition) and in theory, are already fully knowledgeable of their issues. Granted, there was nowhere to go but up, but “up” still happened. Stay tuned.
2. Lowering Arizona expectations is probably a good idea
Losing to BYU and looking sickly on offense in doing so is one thing. BYU is a house of horrors to teams at times. Being down 21-3 to Grambling and needing a scorched earth halftime talk from Rich Rodriguez … not that he does non-scorched earth ones? That’s a different kettle of fish. Brandon Dawkins looks possibly a little more dual threat than Anu Solomon at quarterback, but you can’t really be inspired too much thinking the Cats needed 28 straight to put Grambling away by 10. Hard to tell what’s going on here, other than just bad football.
3. Arizona State and Texas Tech, if they played in basketball, likely wouldn’t score as many as 68-55
ASU won the defenseless bowl, brought to you by mosquito repellent that doesn’t have Deet. You probably shouldn’t need 68 points to only win by 13, but I suppose the ends justify the means. It’s a nice win for the Devils, though, any way it comes, because Texas Tech is mostly a middle of the road Big 12 team that apparently only recruits one side of the ball. On an otherwise non-noteworthy college football day, Kalen Ballage’s NCAA record-tying 8 touchdowns is a nice stat. No word on whether the NCAA will mark it with an * and place “happened against Texas Tech” in the footnotes.
4. Oregon’s halftime adjustments on defense bear worth watching going forward
If there’s a team we really don’t know much about in the Pac-12, it’s Oregon. But a mildly troubling trend has occurred in their two wins over FCS overmatched foe UC Davis and ACC overmatched foe Virginia … the Ducks seem to come out a little limp on defense in the second half. In racing out to moderately large leads, the Ducks have come out in the third giving up 28 points in two games. Now, some of it could be, “we got this, so let’s keep doing what we’re doing” while the other team is, “well, we’re getting stomped and this is why, so let’s mix it up a bit.” But it bears worth watching as Oregon starts playing teams with a snowball’s chance at beating them.
5. Utah’s defense is going to be put in some uncomfortable positions, because the offense is on the struggle bus until otherwise noted
The starting running back is having issues holding onto the ball (Joe Williams) and the Utes never really got anything going against Southern Utah in game 1, and somehow survived SIX turnovers in game 2 against BYU. It’s not often you’re winning with that type of hatred for keeping the football, but BYU was only able to get into the Utah red zone twice and couldn’t do a darn thing with the gifts. So last we said we’d learn a lot about Utah. We did. Elite defense. Which will have to bail out a crusty offense.
