TCU beats Oregon State, BYU beats Washington. The MWC’s Big 3 all open with big wins, two tonight over alleged Pac-10 contenders. #midswin
TCU beats Oregon State, BYU beats Washington. The MWC’s Big 3 all open with big wins, two tonight over alleged Pac-10 contenders. #midswin
What needs to be taken into consideration is, these are top-level MWC teams playing at home against mid-level Pac-10 teams.
Don’t tell me Oregon State is a true “contender”. Mike Riley overachieves with the limited talent he is able to recruit to Corvallis, and that’s backed up by Oregon State’s repeated inability to pull off tough wins early in the year.
As for Washington… they were able to milk a lot of hype out of a freak upset of USC and a returning QB who’s physical talent awes, but there is simply no reason to consider them a legitimate contender just yet.
Oregon right now has to be favored for the Pac-10 title, followed closely by USC, Arizona, and Stanford. Cal should be in there, but I don’t trust Kevin Riley and Cal always underachieves (Cal is the antithesis of Oregon State). fUCLA ought to be a contender — they have the talent, the defense, and (supposedly) the coaching — but I just don’t see it. IMO, Washington, fUCLA, and Arizona State will all be battling for spots 7, 8, and 9.
BYU looked good, but not great, honestly the mistakes by UW’s special teams are really what kept them in that game. Roughing the kicker, snapping it over the punters head for the safety, multiple botched returns that left us in terrible field position. I think BYU could have a good season in the Mountain West, but I disagree with Andrew’s conclusion that the upset of USC was freak and thats what was milked. Did he forget the dominating wins over both WSU and then unexpectedly Cal to end the season? Or that USC just wasn’t its best last season?
I think Oregon and Stanford are the front runners for the conference, I think Oregon State looked a lot better against TCU than USC did against Hawaii. I haven’t seen any of Arizona or Arizona State so I’m not going to hazard a guess there, I think UCLA and WSU will be in the last two spots come season end.
“dominating wins over both WSU and then unexpectedly Cal”? Beating WSU by any margin does not impress, and as far as Cal goes, see my other comments re: Cal as underachievers and Kevin Riley = awful.
Is Jake Locker still the #1 overall draft pick and Heisman candidate after throwing perfect passes to the BYU Cougars when his team needed him the most? This guy is the most over-rated QB since Jimmy Clausen, the only difference is that we all realized Clausen was over-rated before his senior season, Locker hasn’t done anything in 4 years and “the experts” still believe. Herbstreit, get your head out of Kipers ass.
@Sandy. Um Locker didn’t throw a single interception the whole game, and had some great throws and a couple of great runs too. You clearly didn’t watch the game because the problems the Huskies had weren’t due to Locker, but the special teams and defense .
Locker didn’t throw an interception, sure, but his accuracy was questionable. I saw more than a few off-target throws.
The game was on at a restaurant I was having dinner at. I admit I wasn’t that focused on the game, but I swear he threw passes directly to BYU players. I’m reading the recap of the game and it says he went 20-37 and the Huskies got shut out in the 2nd quarter. That’s pretty bad for a Heisman candidate, allegedly.