It is crazy in the Pac-12 Conference! With teams beating up on each other every week, the road to Conference Championship is getting treacherous, which means several different things for UCLA Football going forward.
Picture, if you will, a conference that is striving to be the best in the country. Then imagine that every single team in that conference, no matter if they are ranked or a cellar dweller, is fighting tooth and nail every week. Then imagine all 12 of those teams in a steel cage kicking the crap out of each other during conference play.
Welcome to Pac-12 Football!
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I need to admit to you, I’m a bit scared. It’s not because it’s Halloween season, and I do not have a costume yet, it is because the Pac-12 Conference is the scaring me ion weekly heart attacks. Things are crazy here. You can no longer guarantee a pick with any given team on any given Saturday (or Thursday, or Friday) and that is frightening.
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That was proven once again in the last three days when USC fell to Washington and Oregon (yes freaking Oregon!) lost to Washington State. Right now, Wazzu Head Coach Mike Leach is probably strutting his stuff across the Palouse yelling out, “haters gonna hate!”
I would too if I just beat Oregon.
To add to the calamity, Cal nearly took down Utah in the SLC in ESPN’s game of the week. First off, bravo Cal for the effort. Secondly, bravo Utah for representing the Pac-12 Conference and putting on a show for the country. Sloppy, yes. Inconsistent, yes. Intriguing nonetheless.
Can you imagine what kind of chaotic world we would be living in if the Golden Bears actually beat that Utes in Salt Lake City? It will be straight up anarchy. Cal would be sitting on top of the North Division looking down at Stanford and Oregon… no body would have predicted that.
So what does that mean for UCLA Football right now? They are currently one game behind Utah, so a win up at Stanford on Thursday would not only keep them in the South Division race, it would have them sitting atop the standings, though they would give a tie-breaker to Arizona State.
Now here is the interesting bit about next week’s schedule: it will continue to get insane. ASU travels to Utah, USC is at Notre Dame and Oregon heads up to Washington. Calamity awaits in the Conference of Champions.
UCLA Bruins
So let us say that UCLA beats Stanford, Utah and ASU will help clear the way for the Bruins to get back on top of the South Division. Since ASU beat UCLA, Bruin fans should look for Utah to defeat the Sun Devils.
USC seems to be in a pickle themselves, but playing a non-conference game at this point in the season will not help them in the division, win or lose. As for Washington, they have a chance to do two great things with a victory over Oregon: (1) stay in the North Division race and (2) continue to make Oregon irrelevant.
Coming back to UCLA Football, the Bruins need to stay ahead of the other teams in the conference and come out strong for the remainder of the regular schedule, but that is going to be extremely difficult, especially with UCLA having Cal visit the Rose Bowl the following week.
After that, the Bruins are at home against Colorado, play at Oregon State and then play in their final home game of 2015 against Washington State before they end the regular season at Utah and USC.
The Stanford, Cal, Utah and USC games are definitely huge games but seeing as how anything can happen in the Pac-12, the games against Colorado, OSU and WSU concern me a little bit more. I do not trust them as automatic wins for UCLA Football. There should be no reason the Bruins lose to these teams, but at the same time, I would not be surprised if they do.
It is that kind if year in the Pac-12 Conference. So please, Bruins, just win for my health’s sake.
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