It's the Flomax Pac-10 Midseason Report

With the generosity of everyone’s favorite one-time (current?) ESPN halftime sponsor, this year’s midseason report is again brought to you by Flomax. Of course, with the economy as it is, they were all out of sponsorship money and could only offer a box of rubber gloves. On with it.

The Can’t Miss Pac-10 Bowl Lineup

Let’s get the guesses out of the way early. The Pac-10 has had better years and only claimed one BCS spot, but if USC doesn’t win the conference and finishes with two losses, it’s hard to see them get excluded. That’s my rationalization of what is probably a bit (lot) of Pac-10 (and Oregon) homerism.

Like We’ve Always Said, the Pac-10 is All About Defense

It’s a pop quiz! I think I got all the answers right.

Which conference has more teams in the top 21 for total defense than any other league?

The Pac-10 has four teams in the top 25 for scoring defense and no teams in the top 27 for scoring offense. Explain what the that means to you in exactly 21 words.

I believe the Pac-10 has good defense and that is why more teams are better at scoring defense than scoring offense.

True or false. The Pac-10 has two of the country’s top 5 run defenses.

Complete this sentence: The blog that is best at using arbitrary ranges and selectively picking stats to bring home a point is Off The Pond.

Best Performance By a Fan in the One and Only Game Attended by this Blog

Guy on the left, obnoxious. Guy in the middle, unhappy.

I didn’t get around to a 2,000 word essay about my trip to UCLA, but somehow this guy has to be worked in. We got seats at the last minute in a nice row of the visitor section at the Rose Bowl. While the allotment was sold out, there were still a number of empty seats in the two rows below us just before a wide walkway that separates the upper and lower sections of the stadium. As the first half went along, more and more people started showing up in these seats. Shirtless men, frat-tastic students, greying crazies, they all found a spot. During the scoring outburst in the third quarter, all looked like they had about 12 too many Red Bulls at halftime (gotta’ love Duck fan’s enthusiasm). But one guy in particular stole the show. He used the walkway as his own personal platform.

With a perma-grin best described as shit-eating, he managed to annoy and entertain an entire section. He completely pissed off a guy the FOTB tells me was blind by harassing the man’s wife and got suitably yelled at for it. A little later, he miserably failed in a five minute, kneeling attempt to make the guy love him. At one point, he sat and stared at another lady’s burrito like it was the only food he’d seen in days. When security asked him to go back to his seat in another section, he disguised himself by turning his shirt inside out and wearing his hat forward. On and on it went and I was reminded why 50 inches and HD is a perfectly suitable substitute for regular attendance.

A League of Schizophrenics

At any given time, eight teams in the Pac-10 have been worthy of a national ranking. All eight have also been worthy of ESPN’s Bottom 10.

Washington Says “We’re Back”. Oregon says, “Not So Fast”

Which is the bigger comeback story this year, Stanford or Washington? I’d say the Huskies by virtue of their win over USC and their 0-12 record a year ago. But the fever pitch of Washington’s 3-3 start is so Oregon circa 1994. You know, cute little underdog thinking they’re one of the big boys now. Consider this my warning shot before the blog goes all “Husky Hate” next week.

Something in the Water of the Bay Area

I’m not sure what’s going on in Northern California, but Stanford and Cal both seem to share a propensity to lose a game just when you think there’s something building. Cal is becoming notorious for underachieving just as they start to, uh, achieve. Now, Stanford is showing flashes of the same trait. Losses to Wake Forest and Oregon State temper enthusiasm about a team that is probably good enough to be ranked, but seems to step on itself at the wrong times. I guess after a decade of bad football, Stanford would be happy with that assessment. Cal, not so much.