Duck hunt

By dominating Cal in the second half of a 31-20 win, the ASU Sun Devils have set a date with the Oregon Ducks that will have Rose Bowl and possibly national championship implications. This Saturday, the Devils will travel to Eugene for a second consecutive matchup between top-10 teams in Autzen (only the second in history).

According to Stewart Mandel, Oregon is still the team to beat in the Pac-10 despite ASU’s unbeaten and conference-leading status. If the team is to come out of Autzen unscathed, Erickson should take note of USC’s miscues last week, and follow my strategy on beating the Ducks.

Oregon runs the option better than any team in the country. Like Pat White and Steve Slaton at West Virginia, the Ducks boast a fantastic quarterback/running back combo in Dennis Dixon and Jonathan Stewart. Both run the ball extremely well and Dixon isn’t too bad of a passer as well.

To beat Oregon, ASU will have to try and contain the running game and force Dixon to rely on his injured receiving corps. The spread option running attack is based largely on a series of fakes; the quarterback will either fake the handoff to the running back, or hand the ball off and run the opposite direction as a decoy. This attack makes it extremely difficult for the defense to get any sort of pressure on the quarterback because it’s predicated on speed and making quick decisions.

The best defense against this type of running attack is to hit Dixon on every running play, even if he hands the ball off to Stewart. Oregon’s offense runs through Dixon; he calls the plays at the line after reading the defense in a no-huddle setup. Hitting Dixon will do two things: 1) it’ll wear him down physically as the game goes on, and 2) it’ll wear him down mentally as the game goes on.

If you put him on the turf enough times, Dixon will make mistakes. He’ll start getting rid of the ball early and will likely hesitate when running. Just knowing that he’s going to get hit is going to affect his play, and the Devils can’t be penalized for it because of the nature of the Oregon run game. I’m not saying I want him to get hurt, but he’ll think twice the next time he runs up the middle.

On rankings

I can’t even begin to imagine how difficult it is to be Stewart Mandell, or any AP poll voter for that matter. While the Bowl Championship Series has made major college football more of a national sport than it ever was in the pre-BCS days, it still remains largely a regional sport. As a voter, is it really possible to know enough about the 120 major football programs to be able to pull the 25 top teams and put them in order?

Consider Mandell’s recent “Five Things We Learned This Weekend” post. He notes that “reports of the Pac-10’s ascendancy were premature,” based on recent losses Cal has suffered to Oregon State and UCLA as well as USC’s loss to Stanford.

This is quite puzzling, considering that the common justification of the strength of the SEC is that it’s almost impossible for teams to make it through the season undefeated. It certainly was the rational last year, when a one-loss Florida team creamed Ohio State in the National Championship game.

The general consensus of the Pac-10 the past few years has been that it’s USC and nobody, therefore it’s easy for the Trojans to get to the big game. Yet this year, when any Pac-10 team can beat any other on a given Saturday, it’s just proof that the conference is weak.

Let’s just ignore the fact that previously No. 6 South Carolina, who was leading the southeastern division of the SEC, lost to lowly Vanderbilt(see photo). Let’s also ignore the fact that two-loss UCLA, in their loss to Notre Dame (ND’s only win on the season), was starting a walk-on at quarterback because of injuries.

Fans and the media alike were floored by USC’s loss to Stanford, yet they seem to conveniently forget (or are simply unaware of) the large number of injuries the Trojans had picked up in the last few games. They’d loss several linemen, two running backs (including their leading rusher, Stafon Johnson), two great linebackers and a number of cornerbacks.

The Pac-10 is tough this year, I guarantee that. Just wait until bowl season.

Another week of upsets

It was another weekend of upsets in college football this past weekend, one of the big ones coming in the Pac-10. Following Kentucky’s triple-overtime upset of No. 1 LSU, the No. 2 Cal Bears had an epic clock-management blunder that gave the game to the visiting Oregon State Beavers.

With 8:30 remaining in the fourth quarter, the Beaver’s kicked a field goal to go up 31-21 over the Bears, who were being led by first-time starter Kevin Riley. After throwing for a 65-yard touchdown pass and holding Oregon State to three-and-out, the Bears drove down the field to the Beaver’s 12-yard line with 14 seconds remaining.

Instead of kicking the easy field goal to force overtime, Coach Jeff Tedford sent the team out to take another shot at the end zone. As analyst Kirk Herbstreit noted on ESPN’s College Game Day, it seemed like the Bears were getting a little greedy.

On their last play, as the pocket collapsed, Riley scrambled and decided to run for the first down, which would have stopped the clock, allowing the team to get the field goal unit out. But Riley was tackled short of the marker, time ran out and Saturday became the first time that the No. 1 and No. 2 team lost on the same day since the mid-90s. It’s simply another footnote in what has become the craziest college football season I’ve ever seen.

Failure, thy name is Booty.

I didn’t think it would happen this year, but USC lost. Not only did they lose, but they lost at home. And it was to Stanford, the worst team in the Pac-10. How did this happen, you ask? Three words (names, actually): John David Booty.

I’ll never understand why quarterbacks try to play through injuries that clearly affect the way they play. Sam Keller did it a few years ago for ASU, when he played with two broken fingers against (again) Stanford. The Devils ended up losing. Booty did the same thing, playing through the majority of the game with a broken middle finger. While the Trojans crushed the Cardinals in total yardage, Booty threw four interceptions, one of which led to Stanford’s last scoring drive.

Many of Booty’s passes ended up sailing high over receivers’ heads, which is saying a lot considering two of them are around six-foot four-inches tall. I’ll admit that the Trojan’s woes are not all Booty’s fault. Junior wideout Patrick Turner hasn’t matured as quickly as his predecessors Dwayne Jarrett or Mike Williams did. However, I have had some definite problems with Booty since about this time last year when USC lost to Oregon State.

First: Booty has a problem with touch. He throws the ball with the same velocity in almost every situation; receivers could be five yards away, and he still chucks it like he’s throwing down field. Because of this, his passes tend to be low enough that linemen can knock them down at the line of scrimmage, which is what ended game-winning drives against UCLA and Oregon State last year.

Second: I think opposing coaches have figured out how to play Booty – blitz the hell out of him. He panics under pressure and has trouble moving out of the pocket unless the play specifically calls for a bootleg. A lot of quarterbacks are immobile; the better ones will stand tall in the pocket and deliver a catchable ball knowing that they’ll get hit. Booty, however, is content to get rid of the ball just to avoid getting hit.

For example: Former Heisman Trophy Winner and USC quarterback Carson Palmer was injured in the playoffs against the Pittsburgh Steelers when he held onto the ball as long as necessary to allow Chris Henry to get open along the sideline. Palmer completed the pass, a 66-yard bomb that went for a touchdown, but tore his ACL and MCL when hit by Kimo von Oelhoffen. Following successful surgery and physical therapy, Palmer returned and is now considered one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL.

Third: I don’t think Booty has “it.” If you look at the collegiate careers of both Palmer and Matt Leinart, you’ll notice that they were both able to make plays when the game was on the line. In recent memory, consider Leinart’s audible to get the Trojans out of 4th-and-9 in their own territory against Notre Dame or even his quarterback sneak to win the game. Booty has yet to show that he’s a confident leader who can make plays to win games.

This loss also falls on the coaching staff. There is absolutely no reason that Booty should have been left in the game. Even if they’d pulled Booty after interception number three, the defense is good enough to hold on to win a game against a team like this. Giving a team a short field is the worst thing you can do when your offense isn’t clicking.

I’m sure it’s hard for Coach Pete Carroll to move away from Booty. The guy left high school a semester early to come and join the team, thinking that he might get the start over Leinart; since then he’s waited patiently for his time in the spotlight. And perhaps the standards have been set too high, following two Heisman-winning quarterbacks.

By the way, the picture of Booty was taken from a facebook group. Hilarious.

Fight on.

For those of you who caught the USC-Washington game, I don’t need to tell you how big of a bullet the Trojans dodged on a day when five of the top ten teams in the country were upset.  Following two dominating performances on the road at Nebraska and at home against Washington State, the Trojans showed that perhaps they shouldn’t be the number one team in the country by barely beating the Huskies 27-24.

On the bright side, USC was able to win a game in which almost everything went wrong.  The Men of Troy committed 16 penalties for 161 yards, compared to Washington’s  190 total yards.  Add those penalties to two interceptions thrown by John David Booty, the loss of two offensive linemen and the loss of yet another cornerback, and you have the makings of a close game.  In pure productivity, the Trojans dominated the Huskies, putting up 460 total net yards, 224 of which were picked up on the ground mostly by tailbacks Chauncey Washington and Staffon Johnson.

This year’s USC squad, with a preaseason ranking of No. 1, is a team that was supposed to be defined by 10 starters returning on defense.  Following a litany of injuries, the Trojans are down to their third or fourth string cornerback on one side and are missing their best pass-rushing linebacker, Brian Cushing.  It’s nice, however, to see that if one aspect of the offense isn’t working for the Trojans, they can always fall back on the other.  It’s a luxury that they didn’t have last year when Washington was often hurt and with four true freshman in the rotation.

People may think I’m crazy, but I still see this team easily handling Oregon and Cal.  Stewart Mandel called their weekend matchup one of the best games of the season, but I still think that USC is a way more physical team on defense and offense.  Many people question USC’s defense against Oregon’s deadly spread offense, citing that the Ducks would have beaten the Bears, if not for three turnovers in the red zone on their last three drives.  Stewart Mandel makes an excellent point on how to beat the spread following SFU’s victory over former No. 5 West Virginia.  Pete Carroll has gone on record saying this is his speediest defense yet…

I think Arizona State looks to be the toughest game for the Trojans.  Football fans know that Dennis Erickson, no matter where he’s coaching, should not be underestimated.  The Sun Devils have shown that they’re a physical team and that they can play tough through four quarters.  They’ve played two games this year where, in the first quarter they were down by at least two touchdowns, only to fight back and win.  One of these wins came against a Colorado team that just downed former No. 3 Oklahoma.  ASU’s next two matchups will show a lot about what type of team Erickson has.  The Devils play on the road at Washington State, a team they should beat easily (the test is that it’s on the road), and at home against Washington and the future of the Husky program, quarterback Jake Locker.   For those unfamiliar with Jake Locker, he’s called the Tim Tebow of the west…