O-S-U, Our Pants are Off to You: Pac-12 Check

Now, with Power Rankings!

This week, we debut the inaugural Ditch Rich Pac-12 Poll. This poll will be voted on by myself, and you, the readers. This first poll was voted on by a pilot group of seven loyal Ditch Richers, but next week’s poll will be open to any and all interested parties. I’ll post the link to future polls at the beginning of every Monday Game Review.

There’s no boundaries on what sort of system a voter may use, and some future polls may receive some kind of chaos-adjusted outliers to try and account for the madness of this conference.

I purposely chose to start the Poll after Week Three because I resent preseason poll inertia, and also so that we had a handful of games as a point of reference as we enter conference play.

Here’s where our prestigious voting body thinks everyone falls within the Pac-12:

And now, for The Good, The Bad, and The Badder, in the Pac-12 this week.

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The Good: Fresno State is a quality win now.

If you were up watching #Pac12AfterDark, then you witnessed UCLA fall victim to an act of the universe that only passes through a sporting event on very special occasions.

The former-Husky-current-Bulldog, Jake Haener, suffered what seemed to be an excruciating abdominal injury just before he scored a go-ahead touchdown against #13 UCLA.

While Haener was writhing in pain on the sideline, DTR and Chip Kelly stormed down the field and gained back the lead wirth just under a minute to go.

Haener was not of this world on that evening however, so he was governed by different rules that belonging to an alternate universe where miracles happen in the shadow of the San Gabriel Mountains.

He stormed down the field—much like he did when he took Oregon down to the wire—and he wrenched in pain after every throw.

And when he scored the game-winning touchdown pass to Jalen Cropper, he couldn’t help but to collapse to his knees and point up to the sky in disbelief.

Hell, I was doing that and I just watched it on a screen.

All that to say, that beating Fresno State seems like a pretty big deal right about now.

The Bad: Oregon State has a quarterback.

OSU put on their first shut since 2008 this week when they smacked former Pacific Coast Conference member, Idaho, 42-0.

And the Beavs’ QB Chance Nolan is officially pretty good.

This Saturday, they face USC in LA, and then UDub in Corvallis. If they make it through those two with a split (or, god-willing, 2-0) the Beavs follow that up with Wazzu, Utah, Cal, and Colorado. It’s time to start talking to your children about 5-2—or a 6-1—Oregon State Beaver football team.

I also spent a bad amount of time this week deep diving into the planned renovation of Reser Stadium that starts this November, and I will continue to remind everyone here that: good coaching, transfer portal success, investment in facilities, and a few big wins can pull a program out of the depths of college football hell.

Just look at what all that did for Eugene.

The Badder: Where do I start?

Arizona lost to NAU.

Charlie Brewer quit Utah after Utah quit football.

BYU is going to win the Pac-12.

UCLA lost.

The Huskies won, but they had to lie about their attendance numbers as if it was an Inauguration.

We know what 58,000 people looks like, and this ain’t that!

Go Ducks.