The Battle of Breakfast: Week 1 Pac-12 Preview
Washington has/had seventeen quarterbacks, Oregon State is to be respected, and Arizona State hopes to wake up on the right side of the end zone.
As of Noon Pacific on Friday (11/6), 66% of the Pacific-12 Conference is back in action this weekend. The games this Saturday span from bright and early, to deep into the night.
I originally crudely edited the old Pac-10 logo above just to be funny, but at this point, the Pac-8 logo would have been the most apt for the kind of action we have tomorrow.
Obviously the golden nugget for most of us is the Primetime Stanford/Oregon game, 4:30 PM on ABC, but consider this a viewers guide to what’s happening around the league:
(All times Pacific)
Arizona State at USC - 9 AM, FOX
Not only has the Pac-12 done a very Pac-12 thing by scheduling the two South division favorites against each other Week 1, but they did an even Pac-12ier thing by scheduling it for nine o’clock in the morning.
Kedon Slovis might have saved Clay Helton’s job for now, and Herm Edwards might have won the “We Beat Oregon” Championship last year, but the result of this game will probably mean almost nothing by the end of the year.
Whoever wins this game (probably ASU?) will go on to lose to Utah along with another team they shouldn’t lose to, and the loser of this game (probably USC?) will find themselves winning the South anyway.
CANCELED*- Arizona at Utah - 12:30 PM, ESPN2
After Wisconsin/Purdue was canceled due to COVID, this game was bumped from 1 PM on ESPNU, to the ever-sought-after noon thirty slot on The Deauce. But then, after Utah came down with a couple cases of the COVID, the game was itself canceled.
But you can read my jokes and just pretend it was going to happen:
Utah is definitely not the team they were last year. Kyle Whittingham might have won Pac-12 Fraud Coach of the Year, but he also lost a chunk of his 2019 defense to the NFL, along with RB Zach Moss and QB Tyler Huntley.
Even with the loss of their sub-Pac-12 Champion-level talent, Utah still isn’t as bad off as Kevin Sumlin’s Arizona program—and I doubt they ever will be.
UCLA at Colorado - 4 PM, ESPN2
Chip brings his Bruins and their star QB Dorian Thompson-Robinson up against a Colorado team that I don’t think many people know much about.
This would usually be a game that I wouldn’t have an opinion on, but I am absolutely biased in my hopes of watching the new CU QB—and the pride of Beaverton High School—Sam Noyer, absolutely ball out on UCLA.
The conference’s scheduling methods are laughable, but since there are no games on the Pac-12 Networks this fall, it’s pretty interesting that UCLA/CU at 4 PM pst on November 7th gets a wonderful little slot on ESPN2.
#Pac12AfterDark
CANCELED*- Washington at Cal - 7:30 PM, ESPN
*Unfortunately for all of us, the UDub/Cal Spectacular has been canceled since a critical mass of Cal players are stuck in quarantine due to a COVID-19 infection on the team. That didn’t take long.
But again, you can still read the jokes I wrote as if the Huskies hadn’t lucked out in getting to avoid Wilcox and the Golden Bears:
Say what you will about the gamesmanship of Oregon listing two quarterbacks in their organizational chart, but Jimmy Lake listing FOUR co-starting QBs for Week 1 seems like he either has a wholly unremarkable quarterback room, or he’s playing super five dimensional chess—and I don’t think it’s the latter.
Josh Wilcox and Cal have been the Emerging Team™ in the conference for the last two years, and they will probably continue to be the Emerging Team™ for another three years before they either actually become contenders, or they just fall off entirely. No matter what their future is, they do love beating the Huskies.
This is the first #Pac12AfterDark of 2020, so anything could happen. It’ll probably end up with Cal by 2, or something even weirder.
Wazzu at Oregon State - 7:30 PM, FS1
My official stance on Oregon State University is that I respect the heck out of those scrappy Giant Killers. Jonathan Smith has honestly made a contender out of those spunky Corvallis boys, and he has done it with transfers and overlooked in-state gems.
When you’re a program as strapped-for-cash and resources as OSU often is, you have to take a different approach at building yourself up than the Oregons and the California schools. Gary Anderson’s approach was to buy a billboard after one win over the Ducks and then quit in the middle of the season. As far as I’m concerned, Smith’s plan might work out just a bit better.
The post-Leach Cougs might want to take notes from Smith, too, since Pullman is basically the Corvallis of Washington. Coach Rolo could do a lot with just a bucket hat and a dream, but I don’t think he’ll start that dream off with a win over Tristan Gebbia and the upstart Beavs.
So, there’s your official viewing guide for the weekend. Some of these games will be worth watching, some are impossible to watch due to COVID, and the future of the season seems like a big mess with 2 out of the first 6 games getting canned, but hey, at least we can all agree on one thing: #FireLarryScott
Go Ducks.