‘Memba When The Moshofsky Center Was New?
Ditch Rich ‘membas.
Welcome to the Pac-12 Check. I’ll start with the power rankings.
Still no change at the very top, but we have a pivotal midseason 1 v. 2 matchup this Saturday that will hopefully give us a clearer picture of who is the frontrunner in this crazy little thing we call a conference.
Lots of movement in the middle. Good wins by UCLA, Utah, and Wazzu helped them climb bigly, and USC’s rise can only really be explained by the fact that UDub and Stanford fell hard.
And rock bottom is still rock bottom.
Now, let’s explore The Good, The Bad, and The Badder in the Pac-12 this week.
The Good: The O Center is the new Mo Center.
Eugene, we have another state-of-the-art sports facility coming to town.
Uncle Phil is just being mean at this point. The paint hasn’t even dried on New Hayward Field yet, and he’s already coming back for more.
We’re just rubbing it in the rest of the conference’s faces, and as long as they don’t touch a hair on Mac Court’s pretty little head, I say keep it coming.
This new proposed ~130,000 sq. ft indoor practice facility would be the second building of that size at Oregon, and it looks to be a gigantic glass cover in the shape of an “O” that would be built over the current practice fields.
I mean, Bezos and Musk would be able to see The O from Almost Space—and maybe even Actual Space if they ever feel brave enough to finally go all the way there.
The Bad: Somehow, UCLA Gameday traffic got worse.
ESPN College Gameday is showcasing the Oregon-UCLA game this weekend, and the TV crew was in a Catch-22 when it came to deciding where they should hold the show in order to get the most fans to hold up some mildly amusing signs.
Should they do the show on campus and get a bunch of rowdy-ish students? Or should they hold it in front of the iconic Rose Bowl and take the chance to brag about the, *Keith Jackson voice* “sunrise over the San Ga-briel Mountains?”
They chose campus, which is in Westwood, but the Rose Bowl (AKA Autzen South) is located in Pasadena, which is about a 50 minute drive from campus on a really good day.
If it wasn’t already a tough swing on a regular gameday to get students to take The 405 to The 101 to The 134 to The 159 all the way out to the deep Valley; this Saturday gets way tougher with the addition of the Gameday Guys.
The show runs from 6-9 am (although, in Eugene, the whole “experience” basically starts around 9 pm on Friday night) and then you’re asking the hyper-passionate football fans of L.A. to find the energy—and the sheer gumption—to rally, grab a $100+ Uber, and make a 12:30 kick?
As if!
The Badder: There’s another job opening in the conference.
Apparently, Washington State is a Research University, and not a “Do Your Own Research” University.
Nick Rolovich learned that lesson the hard way this week when he got predictably fired for not getting vaccinated against COVID-19.
I don’t care what your views on the subject in general are, but I will say that for $3 mil per year you could go ahead and shoot me up with 300cc of Baja Blast for all I care.
Also, even if the vaccine did make you magnetic or something, are you trying to tell me that magnetism would be an argument AGAINST getting it???
Please, Magneto is like at least the fourth most powerful of all the X-Men, what are we even talking about here?
Pride is a myth propagated by Big Testosterone, folks. Take the money. Every. Single. Time.
Go Ducks.