In a month’s time, a Pac-12 race that was seemingly wide open has now seriously narrowed down and teams have begun to separate themselves. However, that has not stopped various upsets that have seriously shaken up the Pac-12 race. Here is what we have learned about the Pac-12 in the month of October.
Big Winners:
Stanford Cardinal
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It’s an understatement that Stanford, who is undefeated in the conference, is the Pac-12’s only hope to get a team into the college football playoffs. It’s also been an understatement how good the Cardinal were in the month of October. They really ran roughshod over the conference averaging, 43 points per game and holding opponents to 23.5 points a game over the last five weeks. Halloween night, against a pretty solid team up in Washington State, the Cardinal proved that they could also come from behind and win in close games with a 30-28 win.
Stanford is a nice blend of young talent and experience, most notably at the game’s most important position. Quarterback Kevin Hogan is now in his senior year and he has played great football, throwing 14 touchdowns to just five interceptions, but he isn’t the only one. His lead running back Christian McCaffrey has played as well as anyone in the country and really has inserted himself into the Heisman conversations. Stanford is definitely the favorite to come out the Pac-12 north, and barring a horrible November, they should be favorites to play in the Pac-12 championship. If they keep on playing at the level that they have, there is no reason they wouldn’t be in the conversation for one of the nation’s top four teams come season’s end.
Washington State Cougars
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This may seem like an odd pick, especially because this team is now 5-3 following their loss to Stanford at home on Halloween night, but it is safe to say that no one expected this Cougars squad to be 5-3 at this point in the season, especially after the way the team started the year when they lost inexcusably to the Portland State Vikings of the FCS. Of those five wins, the most impressive ones came on the road against the Oregon Ducks and on the road in Arizona against the Wildcats. Even in their losses to the Cal Golden bears and to Stanford, they were close battles that Wazzou had chances to win in until the end (they actually would have beaten Stanford had their field goal kicker not missed wide right).
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The Cougars have one of the best unknowns in the nation at the quarterback spot who’s been the catalyst of the success, and that is the sophomore Luke Falk. Falk has had a terrific season throwing the ball, with 3,239 yards and 28 touchdowns to just six interceptions and an unbelievable 149.4 quarterback rating. He also has a plethora of receivers at his disposal, most notably the talented veteran Gabe Marks. The junior receiver had a memorable month of October in which he racked up 527 yards, but more amazing was that he scored nine of his 11 receiving touchdowns in the month. Washington State won’t be in the conversation for the playoffs, but they have a realistic shot of making a bowl game berth should they win out the remainder of the year.
Oregon Ducks
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The Oregon Ducks haven’t had a great season. In fact, the first month was a horrible start with bad losses to Michigan State and Utah. However, besides another letdown at home against the Cougars of Washington State, the Ducks really recovered well when it looked as if they’d implode. They won a blowout against the University of Colorado, and they won in tight contests against the Washington Huskies and a shootout against Arizona State.
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One of the ways Oregon has been winning has been running the football much more with their talented tailback Royce Freeman. He has really shouldered much of the load with 1,109 rushing yards and 11 touchdowns on 165 carries. Also, their graduate-transfer quarterback Vernon Adams, Jr. had a much better second month of the season with 659 yards and six touchdowns versus only one interception. It will be interesting to see how the Ducks finish the remainder of the season with games against Stanford, Cal and Southern California on the horizon, not to mention their annual rivalry game against the Beavers of Oregon State.
Losers:
Utah Utes
Utah was riding high at the beginning of the month. At one point the Utes were ranked third in the nation and looked to be a legitimate top four team until they were humbled on the road at Southern California in a 42-24 loss, which caused them to tumble all the way to thirteenth. The Utes are unlikely to make the top four regardless if they win out the rest of their games. USC, with their with their big win over Utah, has suddenly changed the outlook of the Pac-12 south division, and are potentially in the driver seats to win the division and meet the North’s winner in the conference championship.
Cal Golden Bears
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In September, the Golden Bears were off to an undefeated start, but one of the things that kept people from taking them seriously was that they’d yet to play any top-caliber teams; they had beaten three teams in Texas, San Diego State and Washington who have not been that good this season, and they crushed Grambling State University, who is an FCS school. Sure enough, though, the brutality of their Pac-12 schedule caught up with them, and following an impressive win over what’s been a decent Washington State team that raised their record to 5-0, the Golden Bears have lost their last three games to the likes of Utah, the UCLA Bruins and the USC Trojans.
Cal has arguably the top quarterback prospect in this upcoming draft in the fold in junior Jared Goff, and Goff has played fairly well this year with over 2500 passing yards and 22 touchdowns, but his interceptions have doubled from the number he threw in 2014 (He threw five a season ago as opposed to 11 this season). On top of the turnover problems, his receivers, specifically his top target Kenny Lawler, struggled in October; Lawler averaged just over 58 yards a game for the month and recorded only three touchdowns.
If there is anything positive to take away from what was otherwise a rough month for the Golden Bears, it could be that aside from a blowout versus the Bruins, they played the Utes and Trojans very tough and had legitimate chances in each of those games. Also, Cal has now totaled their wins from all of last season and they still have three games remaining. They could still potentially clinch a bowl berth and play in the postseason, which would be huge for this program.
Teams to Watch Out For:
USC Trojans
The Trojans have had some disappointing losses to the Cardinal and an ugly loss at home against the Washington Huskies. On top of that, the month didn’t get off to a promising start off the field when Coach Steve Sarkisian was fired as a direct result of his drinking problems that surfaced in the offseason during an unfortunate incident at an alumni event. Despite all that, the Trojans are in position to still potentially come out off the Pac-12 South as champions, and especially following a dominant win against the then undefeated Utes, and a tough win against the Golden Bears.
USC has a ton firepower on offense, with an efficient quarterback and a wide receiver duo that features the nation’s best wideout JuJu Smith-Schuster and his complimentary sidekick Adoree Jackson, who is a threat both offensively and defensively. On defense they have an awesome linebacker core led by Su’a Cravens and a secondary led by the aforementioned Jackson, who recorded a pick six against Cal. At least three of the Trojans’ final four games are potential “traps”; those games are against the Ducks, who look much better now than they did earlier, the Wildcats and the rivalry game in the final week against the Bruins.
UCLA Bruins
The Bruins looked really good in September, but then they hit a rough patch in the beginning of October, losing two games back to back to the Arizona State Sun Devils and the Stanford Cardinal. What made it worse is they were really bullied in each of those games; there was a touchdown that Arizona scored in which their running back ran backwards and carried UCLA’s defense into the endzone for a long touchdown, and then the Bruins made Sports Center when one of their defensive backs was involved in an incredible catch in which a Stanford receiver caught it with his arms wrapped around the defensive player’s back.
Then, to end the month, the Bruins took it to the Golden Bears in a 40-24 victory and outdueled Colorado in a 35-31 thriller. While those wins don’t really blow anyone away, they’ve helped propel the Bruins to a record of 6-2. The play of their freshman quarterback Josh Rosen has been exceptional. Rosen’s thrown 16 touchdowns and passed for over 2200 yards on the season, with nine of them coming in October. The play of running back Paul Perkins has also been impressive; he’s ran for 872 yards and nine scores on the year. Three of the Bruins’ final four games this year will be on the road against the Beavers, the Utes and their hated rivals the Trojans. The last month of the regular season should be a fun one.
Big-Time Playmakers:
Cameron Smith, Linebacker-USC
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This linebacker core for USC might be led by Su’a Cravens, but he isn’t the only one that’s made an impact; in fact, Cameron Smith actually is the team’s leading tackler even though he’s just a freshman. However he really had his coming-out party against Utah when he intercepted three passes and took one of them back for a touchdown (He totaled 122 yards in return yardage). Smith has recorded 147 total tackles on the year and he’s had multiple games in which he’s recorded 10 tackles or more. He has the three interceptions on the year as well, but he’s recorded three pass-defenses too.
Smith will be the leader of this defense in a year or so, and if he continues to play as he has, the Trojans defense will be in very good hands the next couple seasons.
Gabe Marks, Wide Receiver-Washington State
Washington State doesn’t get a lot of exposure for several reasons. Among them are that no one expected they would play this well this year, and they play in more late games due to their time zone, so understandably, people haven’t gotten much of a look at this outstanding receiver for the Cougars.
Coming into this season Marks only had 1,367 total yards and nine total touchdowns in his career, but this season he’s caught 11 touchdowns and has 800 receiving yards on 63 catches. He put together another nice game against the Cardinal, albeit in a losing effort, in which he had 83 yards and a touchdown on six catches.
The junior wideout is just one of many talents in an exceptional receiving core at Wazzou, and for those that have been able to see him, he’s been fun to watch.
Christian McCaffrey, Tailback-Stanford
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By now, everyone has probably heard of this guy. A sophomore tailback and the son of a former NFL receiver, Christian McCaffrey has had an outstanding year. He has really asserted himself as one of the best dual-threat players in the nation, and he’s been so good that he’s on pace to break the all-purpose yards record that is currently held by the great Barry Sanders. McCaffrey is the team’s leading rusher and receiver with 1,060 yards rushing and six touchdowns and 310 receiving yards and two touchdowns.
It’s hard to bet against Leonard Fournette to win the Heisman trophy, but McCaffrey’s definitely played his way into the conversation.
Now the season is nearly complete, and four games remain. Bring on November.
