Never Look Ahead: A Look Ahead at this Week's Schedule in the PAC-10, and the Key National Games

Things get serious this week in the PAC-10, with the contenders facing critical, season-dividing matchups:

Saturday October 9
conference record in parenthesis

12:30 p.m. UCLA (1-1) at Cal (0-1)
2 p.m. Oregon (2-0) at Washington State (0-2)
3 p.m. Oregon State (1-0) at #9 Arizona (1-0)
5 p.m. USC (1-1) at #16 Stanford (1-1)
7 p.m. ASU (0-2) at Washington (1-0)

USC, Stanford, UCLA and Cal face elimination games, or at least world-of-hurt games, and OSU, Arizona and Washington face games to show whether they belong in the top half or the middle of the conference.

Tough test for the Beavs, who got no favors in their schedule this season, weighted early with difficulty while they break in a new quarterback. In their conference opener at home against Arizona State they got six sacks on Steven Threet, and Quizz Rodgers rediscovered his rushing mojo, but they'll need a lot more of the same to unseat the Wildcats in Tucson. Katz is progressing and had a good day Saturday, but he's had to face three top ten teams in their first five games, a tough way to gain confidence and start a career.

If Stanford punishes SC for having the misfortune to catch them bouncing back from an embarrassing loss, the Trojans start 1-2 and have a heart check game the following week facing talented Cal. The Kiffin hire could become a bitterly disputed topic on Trojan blogs, and there will be a lot more room on the celebrity sideline. The winner of Cal-UCLA is still alive and in the discussion, but the loser has an uphill climb in maintaining resolve and believing it's a winnable year.

National games of note:

(It's a good year for wildcats, with Arizona, Northwestern and Kansas State a combined 13-0.)

Thursday night, #7 Nebraska at Kansas State

Saturday October 9

#1 Alabama at #19 South Carolina
#8 Auburn at Kentucky
#12 LSU at #14 Florida
Wyoming at #5 TCU
Indiana at #2 Ohio State
#4 Boise State at Toledo
# 10 Utah at Iowa State
#6 Oklahoma idle

How would you like to be Iowa State? They lost to then-number nine Iowa in game two, play #10 Utah this week, and have games remaining versus #6 Oklahoma, #7 Nebraska, #24 Missouri and unranked and angry Texas. That's a lot of overcooked burgers and consolation shots of Jagermeister at the tailgate.

As we have noted before, Thursday night games are a weird blip on the college football radar, especially for favored visiting teams. Nebraska should have no trouble with Kansas State, but playing on the road on this odd day and odd time is a weird equalizer. Ex-Duck Chris Harper could impress his old teammates with a breakout game on national TV, but thus far he hasn't been a factor in the Wildcats' offense. He has just three catches for 37 yards. The big playmakers for KSU have been tailback Daniel Thomas, 105 carries for 625 yards, a 6.0 average and 6 tds, and quarterback Carson Coffman (a cool quarterback name) with 639 yards passing and 60.5 completion percentage.

Nebraska doesn't have a challenging schedule, and a stumble here could create additional separation from another contender for the Ducks. Not that the Ducks are thinking that way, or should. Just keep listening to Chip, guys. The Duck Stops Here will take care of the fruitless speculation.

Alabama travels to South Carolina to face Steve Spurrier and the Gamecocks in Williams-Brice Stadium. Spurrier's best chance for an upset is to get former Duck recruit Marcus Lattimore loose for a ground-pounding rushing day and have Stephen Garcia cross up the Tide's somewhat suspect defensive backs with timely play action passes. Lattimore leads SC with 366 yards rushing on 84 carries. He's the clock-eating key to keeping Alabama's potent offense on the sidelines.

LSU goes to the swamp for another of those titanic snoozefests the SEC is so famous for. Inept SEC offense and soft out of conference scheduling gives SEC defenses a partly undeserved reputation for toughness and indomitability.

Ohio State and TCU have breathers. Boise State faces Mid-America Conference foe Toledo, a team Arizona torched 41-2. Hard for the Broncs to make a defining, ground-recovering poll impression with this slate. If Alabama, Ohio State, Oregon, Nebraska, and Oklahoma continue to win, BSU slides toward the Sugar or Humanitarian Bowl or another consolation game with TCU or Utah. That would be another sly BCS in-your-face for the smurfs.