Week 3

Hey All,

I'm back from a fun trip to Minnesota to bring you that column you all love, Notes on a Pac 10 Scorecard. We still miss you, Alan Malamud.

Summaries

USC 32- Minnesota 21: The Trojans fell behind the Golden Gophers 14-13 with 5:47 left in the third quarter. The stands were rocking and the Gophers were on fire. About 12 seconds later, the fire and the Gophers were extinguished. USC's sensational freshman, Robert Woods, took a kickoff back for a TD and USC never looked back in this one. Trojan TB Alan Bradford ran for 131 yards and a TD in the winning effort.

Telling Stat: The win was USC's 11th straight over Big Ten competition.

Arizona 34- Iowa 27: Down 27-7 at the half, things looked pretty bleak for the Hawkeyes. They had been outplayed in every phase of the game. Then as UofA was enjoying the third quarter, Iowa started a slow comeback that culminated in the fourth quarter with DE Broderick Binns intercepting a Nick Foles pass and taking it back 20 yards for a TD. Iowa then missed the go-ahead PAT. UofA QB Nick Foles picked this point to take over the game. Foles completed five of six passes including the winning TD pass to WR William Wright 3:57 to play. From there the Wildcat defense took over sacking Iowa QB Ricky Stanzi three times to end the game.

Telling Stat: They were first and last. UofA's two offensive TDs were scored on the Wildcats first and last drives of the game.

Oregon State 35- Louisville 28: Up 35-14 with 9:28 left in the third quarter, the Beaver faithful were happy in Corvalis. With a little over a minute play in the game, they were nervous. Louisville had the ball and was driving for the score that would tie the game. Then, OSU DB James Dockery picked off an Adam Froman pass and all could relax at Reser Stadium. It was the defense that saved the Beavers all day with the two most important plays coming in Louisville's first two drives. The Cardinals got stuffed by OSU on a fourth down and goal at the two and lost a fumble out the back of the endzone to stop their second drive of the game.

Telling Stat: They won the stat battle. Louisville held the edge in every stat category in this game, yet lost.

Nevada 52- California 31: Nevada's pistol offense fired shots through the Golden Bears defense all night long in Reno. Nevada QB Colin Kaepernick completed 10 of 15 passes for 181 yards and two TDs while also running for 148 yards and 3 TDs. Cal's offense ran up 502 yards on the Wolfpack, but their defense could not handle Nevada's running game. This was Nevada's second win ever against the Golden Bears. Their first came in 1906.

Telling Stat: They ran to win. Nevada ran for 316 yards and held the ball for 36:59 in their winning effort over the Golden Bears.

Oregon 69- Portland State 0: The Vikings came to Eugene, got their paycheck, took their beating, and went home. Not much to talk about in this scrimmage at Autzen Stadium. Duck QB Darron Thomas threw for 140 yards and four TDs, while LaMichael James ran for 227 yards and two TDs of his own. The Quack Attack was up 69-0 after three quarters, then emptied the benches to finish up the game.

Telling Stat: PSU was better on fourth down than third down. The Vikings converted one of three fourth downs. They were zero for 18 on third downs.

Wisconsin 20- Arizona State 19: A TD saving tackle and a blocked extra point gave the Badgers a win at Camp Randall Stadium over the Sun Devils. In the first quarter ASU's Omar Bolden returned a kickoff 97 yards for a TD, now it looked like Kyle Middlebrooks was about to equal that feat with a few seconds left in the second quarter. However, UW's Shelton Johnson never gave up on the play and tackled Middlebrooks at the one-yard line as time ran out on the half. Then, in the fourth quarter, Jay Valai blocked ASU's extra point attempt that would have tied the game with 4:09 to play. The Badgers then ended the game by going to the steady John Clay. Clay carried four times on to help the Badgers run out the clock and escape with the win. It was Clay's ninth straight game with over 100 yards rushing and a TD scored.

Telling Stat: They couldn't get six. ASU had three drives of 10 plays or more that covered at least 60 yards each. They scored a total of six points on those drives.

Stanford 68- Wake Forest 24: After getting homered out of win by ACC officials last year, the Cardinal had a score to settle with the Demon Deacons. The Cardinal came out in all black uniforms and with bad intentions. They throttled Wake Forest. SU QB Andrew Luck threw for four TDs and ran for another to account for 278 yards of his team's 535 yards of offense. Meanwhile, eight different backs carried the ball through a hapless Wake Forest defense.

Telling Stat: They all played. 20 different Cardinal players got to pass, carry, or catch the ball in this rout.

Nebraska 56- Washington 21: So much for Jake Locker's Heisman campaign. The Nebraska defense held Locker to 71 yards passing with one TD, 59 yards rushing and the third worst completion percentage of any QB since 2004. Meanwhile, Nebraska QB Taylor Martinez threw for 150 yards and a TD, and ran for 137 yards and three TDs to lead his team to a very impressive road win. The 56 points allowed by Washington ties the school record for most points ever allowed at home. The Cornhuuskers rushed for 383 yards at Washington.

Telling Stat: It was a three-headed beast. Nebraska had three backs rush for over 100 yards against the Huskies.

SMU 35- Washington State 21: Wazzu couldn't stop the passing combinaton of Kyle Padron to Aldrick Robinson and got blown out in Dallas. SMU got their first win over a BCS conference team since they beat Kansas 31-17 way back in the 2000 season. Padron and Robinson connected four times for 111 yards and three TDs. Meanwhile, the SMU defense allowed the Cougars to convert on only 4 of 14 third downs as the offense built up a 35-14 lead. Wazzu's last score came on a long TD pass with just over a minute to play.

Telling Stat: No offense at all. On their last 11 drives of the game, Wazzu punted six times, turned it over on downs twice, missed a field goal, scored one TD and ran out of time once.

UCLA 31- Houston 13: The bRuin defense smacked around the Cougars, knocking QB Case Keenum out of the game, while their offense finally showed some life as UCLA picked up their first win of the year at the Rose Bowl. After giving up an early field goal, the bRuins put up 31 straight points on the Cougars. bRuin Rb Johnathan Franklin was the offense star for UCLA by rushing for 158 yards and three TDs. As for the defense, UCLA defended Houston's spread offense well, allowing a good amount of yards, but making key plays to stop UH when they needed to.

Telling Stat: They needed the win. UCLA's win kept them from going 0-3 to start a season for the first time since 1971.

Observations

...Michigan State HC Mark Dantonio made one of the gutsiest calls I've seen a coach make in a few years when he went with that great fake field goal against Notre Dame. Get well soon, coach D.

...Northwestern is the BCS Champions!!! Well, they won the Brainy Championship Series. To start the year they beat Vanderbilt. This past weekend they beat Rice.

...And then there were 12. They are 12 winless teams left in FBS play. I think Eastern Michigan has the best shot at going winless this year. However, don't count out the loser of the New Mexico-New Mexico State game.

...Notre Dame may have lost a couple of heart breakers in the last two weeks, but this Irish squad looks light years better right now than at any time during the Charlie Weis era.

....I think the Stanford-Notre Dame game will be pretty good this week.

...Quietly making noise; don't look now, but Temple is 3-0 for the first time in forever.

...The Arizona-Iowa game was a hard-hitting, dirty game. I saw a lot of cheap shots and late hits on both sides. It was just nasty.

...It was weird being in Minnesota last weekend, coming out of a Twins-A's game and realizing that the Cal game was only in the first quarter.

...If USC's o-line could get it together, the offense could really start rolling.

...Is it basketball season yet? That's what the fans are asking in the ACC. Wow, this league is bad. Outside of Florida State whipping BYU, there's not much to talk about in this league.

...Stanford's black uniforms are awful. period.

...Cal played another WTF game last week. Can the Golden Bears rebound this week against Arizona or is Cal's annual slide beginning earlier this year?

...It's pretty clear, Cincinnati football died when Brian Kelly left.

...How come nobody talks about TCU the way they do about Boise State?

...Air Force almost got the win at Oklahoma. The Falcons ran for 361 yards on the Sooners.

...Arizona HC Mike Stoops needs to shut up on the sidelines. He whines about everything. Relax, Mike. You won last week.

Until next week folks,

Alway be ready for a fake field goal

-The Commissioner