College Football Coverage: Stanford Flexes Its Muscle

TheSportsNotebook.com’s college football coverage has updated its BCS bowl projections following Week 4, with a special look at the chances of Fresno State rising out of the Mountain West. As part of a conference-by-conference wrap-up of the week, here’s a look at the Pac-12…

Pac-12: Stanford really looks good. The Cardinal pounded Arizona State on the ground, getting 240 yards in rushing, with balance between Tyler Gaffney and Anthony Wilkerson out of the backfield. Stanford will need to get more production out the passing game and Kevin Hogan if they’re going beat Oregon. But the physical manhandling they put on Arizona State in a game they led 29-0 and won 42-28 shows why the Cardinal is among the national elite.

Arizona State’s play showed why they’re nothing more than a spoiler. The offense was nothing except Taylor Kelly throwing the ball to Jaelen Strong. The combo is good enough that you can win a nice number of games like that, but you won’t beat anybody good. The Sun Devils weren’t close enough let an officiating crew steal them a win this time.

USC head coach Lane Kiffin might have been fired Saturday night if he would have lost at home to Utah State, and it was tied in the fourth quarter, before the Trojans won 17-14. USC played excellent defense, as usual, but they weren’t able to force turnovers, and unless they also create scoring with their defense, they’re going to have problems. This is an offense with college football’s best receiver in Marqise Lee and they can’t get him the ball.

Utah got a nice 20-13 win over BYU, their fourth straight over the Cougars. Considering that BYU has a good national reputation while Utah—at least since their move to the Pac-12—really doesn’t. The Utes are now 3-1 and have the look of a team that could play spoiler to someone like Arizona State in the Pac-12 South race, or USC in Lane Kiffin’s fight to remain gainfully employed. 

Other post-Week 4 thoughts from the power conferences…

SEC: Alabama Fails To Impress Again
Big 12: Texas Survives While Baylor Thrives
ACC: Clemson Gets The Win It Needed To
Big Ten: Weakness Keeps Showing