Happy Football Friday on a Thursday to you Cougar Nation. Today marks our first Football Friday, in the better part of a decade, without the presence of Sean and Sutra/BH, but here we are marching on!
Hopefully each of you has the chance to make it to the CLink this weekend to watch the Cougs and Beavers do battle. If you will be there, don’t forget to Wear Your Crimson, as the goal is to have all in attendance wearing Crimson. By the way, just like it took me some time to stop saying “Seahawks Stadium”, I am now finding it difficult to drop “Qwest”. But at least it sounds funny when you say something like “I’m going to drink a bunch of beers and wind up in the CLink before Saturday’s Wazzu game!” Hopefully the person you are speaking to doesn’t think you mean jail.
Anyways, so here we are with another Football Friday, so let’s get after it! The standings in Group One of our Pick Em League now have three clear leaders; St Pete Cougs at 190, The General at 187, and Cougar Country Fry Sauce at 186. Over in the maligned Group Two, Hawaiian Hentai leads the way at 34-14, followed by CWhite, Wazzu29 and Selah all at 32-16.
Lucas Likes:
Arizona 34 – UCLA 28: The Wildcats are going to do it for their deceased coach, just like the Raiders did in memory of Al Davis the day after his passing. Oh, what’s that you say? Mike Stoops didn’t have a heart attack on the sideline after an artery in his neck burst following a shouting match with a referee? Well then. My bad. I bet Craig James & Jesse Palmer are stoked for this fantastic Thursday night match-up. Who cares, cause Craig James is a d-bag.
Oregon 70 – Colorado 10: I was watching College Football Live on my Lunch Break yesterday and saw a graphic pop up that showed Colorado ranks in the bottom 10% in the country in all of these statistics, that match up with all of Oregon’s strengths. That came from ESPN’s No Shit, Sherlock Department by the way! Chip Kelly is such a prick that he is letting LaMichael James hold conference to say how bad he wants to play this weekend. Why? What’s the point? Chip, your scout team would blow CU out of the water!
Utah 28 – California 21: Cal falls to 0-4 in-conference and all the Bears fans who clowned me back in July for picking their beloved Bears to finish in the cellar of the Pac 12 North continue to look like fools and make me smile. Last week the Utes went on the road to Pitt and held the nation’s second leading rusher to something like 45 yards.
Notre Dame 38 – USC 28: The Notre Dame defense is very salty, and like I’ve been saying for a few weeks now, USC has to start crumbling at some point and begin the impending downward spiral. USC WR Robert Woods continues to impress as he is averaging 10 grabs and 130+ receiving yards per game! Woods and Barkley are not enough as the Golden Domers stop their bitter rivals.
Stanford 42 – UW 27: UW entered the Top 25 for the first time in over two years this week, yet still head into Palo Alto as 20 point underdogs! Think about that for a second, a Top 25 team, still a 20 point underdog this weekend on the road. That’s how flipping good the Trees are. Stanford’s current 13 game winning streak is by an average nearly of 29 points, and according to KJR, that is the longest win streak in the history of college football, with that kind of scoring differential.
Wazzu 31 – OSU 14: This banged up OSU squad truly resembles the 2009 WSU football team, from an infirmary report view. The only hope for Oregon State is in the hands of FR RB Malcolm Agnew. The Coug WRs need to flush the last two weeks and come out this week with their ears on fire! We all know they can, and if they do, we should have no problem knocking off the Beavs. On a side note, during Monday’s Online Chat with the Seattle Times, I asked Coach Wulff that given the Beavs injured state, if he would ever consider running up the score a la Mike Riley vs Wazzu in 2008 & 2009. Click that link for Coach’s answer.
Go Cougs!!
Tim’s Takes:
When I’m not writing on this here blog, you may recognize me from my escapades at my wizard school, FiddleStix or Gobbledygook or whatever the hell the wacky wizardry words associated with Harry Potter are. OK, I’m not Harry Potter (or Daniel Radcliffe), but I have been told I look like him and need a little magic to stop my downward slide in the Pick ‘Em League so “Abracadabra” and stuff…
Arizona 31 – UCLA 28 ‘Zona has to win again at some point, right? Assuming the UCLA secondary isn’t allowed to cheat like they were against WSU (sour grapes), I think Nick Foles will put up enough points to outscore the Bruins and their freakishly giant receivers. I hope I’m right on the scoreline so that a national audience doesn’t have to witness another putrid game and have a complete misunderstanding about the quality of our conference.
Oregon 56 – Colorado 13 At what point will Ralphie, instead of charging out of the tunnel onto the field, amble out, mutter “F it” and just lay down? For that matter, at what point will the team start doing this? On the bright side, Buff fans, it looks like LaMichael James and Darron Thomas will be ready to go so that will be fun to watch. The Jon Embree Era!!
Utah 21 – Cal 20 I’ve got to say I was pretty impressed by Utah going on the road and beating Pittsburgh last week. Just when I thought I was out on the Utes, I’m kinda back in. Once again I’m confused. What (I think) I do know is this: Utah’s defense is good. Zach Maynard stinks.
Notre Dame 24 – USC 17 This one’s got the makings to be a good ol’ fashioned slobberknocker. Nay, a donnybrook. A real slugfest, if you will. A fracas, even. What I’m saying is, I think this game is going to be pretty physical.
Stanford 42 – Washington 21 If the Cardinal don’t beat the Dogs convincingly, I’m going to be legitimately bummed out. Should UW establish themselves as ready to compete with the conference’s elite, I’ll be ready to establish myself as ready to learn how to kick myself in the nuts.
Cougs 38 – Beavs 24 Will the real Jeff Tuel please stand up? I don’t know how long it takes exactly to stop being rusty, but I’m pretty sure a week and a half should be sufficient. We should get our first glimpse this week at the fully-loaded Cougar offensive train and the Beavs are standing on the tracks. A full day for a crapload of Cougs to “prepare” for this one should lend itself to a hostile environment at the CLink. I think the defense will thrive on that emotion early to get some stops, but unlike last week, the offense will be scoring while those stops occur. I’d like to see an aggressive offense early with the ball control offense we saw against UCLA put into effect late to shut the door. For the first time since who knows when, we’re going to a conference game with at least comparable, probably more talent than our opponent. There are several factors combining to make this the perfect storm for a big game. This is a pivotal game in a pivotal season. There’s no way getting around that this one is huge and I see it as a huge win. Go Cougs.
Longball’s Locks
Last year the Cougs did something they have yet to duplicate this year… they destroyed a conference opponent on the road. Now that same opponent comes limping into the Clink with a 1-5 record and a long list of injuries. It’s time. It’s time for the Cougs to come out and dominate an opponent. After letting fourth quarter leads evaporate against SDSU and UCLA, the Cougs bowl hopes need a serious re-charge and beating a warn down Beaver squad is just the bare minimum we should expect from a team that is bowl worthy. No doubt the Beavers are stinging from being the team that finally lost to the Cougs last year and Im sure they are hungry for revenge. But all emotions aside, the Cougs should just be better. Lets hope they prove me right, or this coaching staff can go ahead and call Mayflower and we fans can start getting ready for basketball season.
Cougs 38 – Beavs 24
Arizona 44 – UCLA 33: This just smells like one of those games where a team facing adversity rallies. Perhaps the Cats will find not having Stoops spazzing out on their sideline is a refreshing change.
Oregon 58 – Colorado 21: This will be uglier than their Fiesta Bowl matchup in 2002 and that’s saying something.
Cal 24 – Utah 21: Maynard has been a nightmare for Cal lately, but Utah is playing their backup. Both teams have awesome running backs, so this one goes to the best defense and that’s Cal, barely.
USC 33 – Notre Dame 31: USC is still USC, but barely.
UW 45 – Stanford 44: WHOA, what happened here? I feel like we saw a glimpse of Stanford’s vulnerability at Martin last weekend. If the Cougs had capitalized on their outstanding defensive performance and posted a multi score lead, would Stanford had been content to come out in the straight forward, pro-sets and wear the Cougs down over the next 2 quarters? Im not so sure. That is how a confident and capable team plays… from ahead. But if someone does jump out to a lead, does Stanford have what it takes to play outside their comfort zone? We may find out this weekend as the Huskies have the fire power to get in the end frequently and early.
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