Ducks Win Roses, Huskies Bear Down
December 4th, 2009 by huskyfootballOregon wins the Pac-10 outright and draws The Ohio State in the Rose Bowl while USC, Arizona, and Cal all battle to position themselves for the best bowl available. I guess that would mean the Holiday Bowl in San Diego but Oregon will be the only conference team playing on New Year’s Day.
Fortunately, USC and Arizona play each other this weekend so the decision will probably be made immediately with the outcome of that game. Since getting a national ranking and racing off to a great start, the Wildcats of Arizona have hit a few bumps coming down the stretch in conference play. They are traveling to LA for one of only two conference games left on the slate. The other game of course involves a resurgent Husky team hosting a really good Cal Bear team.
I think Washington will play Cal tough but will win a close one at the finish. If they succeed in beating Da’Bears, it will mark one of the most impressive turnarounds of any program in collegiate history. To go from 0-12 to 5-7 will be really difficult simply because Cal, picked by many to be one of the top teams in the conference, is already 8-3 and likely to end in the Sun Bowl, which in El Paso, is the closest bowl to the Wildcats besides the Fiesta Bowl which is designated for the BCS.
Should USC beat Arizona in their finale, they will most likely go to the Holiday Bowl and Arizona is liable to fall all the way to the bottom and end up in either the MAACO Bowl Las Vegas or the San Diego CCU Poinsetta Bowl. Just by the names alone you can tell they are secondary bowls and right now there are 7 Pac-10 teams eligible for 6 bowl spots. Should the Cal Bears beat the Huskies, they will finish 6-3 in league and will tie Stanford, Oregon State and USC (assuming they beat Arizona), for second place in the final conference standings.
That would mean Oregon will be the only Pac-10 BCS school and the only one from this conference in a good bowl. If Washington were to upset California, and it will definitely be an upset, then Cal could fall to the Emerald Bowl played in San Francisco. The Emerald Bowl, which goes to the 4th or 5th placed team in the conference, wants either Stanford or Cal as that would really boost their attendance to have a local team involved. If Cal and USC both win then USC goes to San Diego and Cal probably ends up in El Paso.
However, because the Huskies are going to upset Cal, Da’Bears are likely to to end up staying at home playing in the Emerald Bowl with Stanford drawing El Paso. Arizona falls to the Las Vegas where they beat BYU last year. Oregon State drops all the way from the Rose Bowl to the Poinsetta Bowl. That’s the 6 bowls prearranged by the conference and it leaves out Rick Neuheisel and his UCLA Bruins, who at 6-6 qualify for consideration, but at 3-6 in conference probably don’t deserve a bowl anyway.
Beating California will be a great win for the Huskies who have already exceeded most expectations by winning 4 games and almost winning 4 others. They will play this weekend without Ryan Tolar who has started every game this year at center. He will be replaced by little used Makenna Ikihara, who has been Tolar’s backup all season, but has had little playing time.
This match-up could be a difficult one for Washinton because Cal uses predominantly an odd front and will always have a man on the center’s nose. The Bears’ noseman is Aaron Tipoti and he plays like a sumo wrestler. He has a very compact stance and immediately attacks the center after every snap. Ikihara will have his hands full all day and is short and compact himself so he will be in hand to hand combat almost every play. That could be interesting particularly when Ikihara is snapping in the shot gun. The Bears will be playing without their best player because Jahvid Best has been ruled out of this contest due to a concussion.
It is the Cal defense that usually gets overshadowed by their offense that really impresses me. They have 5 senior starters on their defensive unit that starts 4 linebackers. Their two defensive tackles, # 44 Tyson Alualu and #97 Cameron Jordan are really aggressive and run lots of stunts with the linebackers especially #9 Eddie Young who is their best blitzer.
Their defense is really solid right up the middle with linebacker Mike Mohamed, #18, leading their team and the conference in tackles. Mohamed will enter this game with 100 tackles on the season and will no doubt be primarily concerned with Chris Polk, the Huskies’ 1000 yard gainer. He also has 3 interceptions and is helped by senior safety, Brett Johnson and senior corner, Syd’Quan Thompson who has 8 pass break ups and 45 tackles on the season.
If Cal’s defense has a weakness, it is in their pass defense where they are 9th in the conference giving up 2827 yards and 14 touchdowns which is actually worse than Washington’s secondary that has struggle all year long. Hopefully, that means Jake Locker could have a 300 yard plus passing night and if he could run for another 75 to 100, could have a monster game accounting for 400 yards on the night. If that happens then Washington will be in good shape to pull off this upset.
Cal’s offense is led by quarterback, Kevin Riley, who although not a great player, is certainly good enough to have won 8 games this year. He will not have Best to hand off to but he will have Shane Vereen who has gained 738 yards as Best’s replacement. Vereen also returns kickoffs and is dangerous out of the backfield as a receiver.
Washington’s defense is coming off their best performance of the season against WSU and seems poised to take on one of the higher echelon teams in this conference. Many people picked Cal to win the Pac-10 but their schedule had them playing Oregon and USC to open league play where they got throttled 42-3 and 30-3 respectively. Since those two games the Bears have settle in winning 5 of their last 6 games icluding upset wins over Arizona and Stanford. They have had 2 weeks to prepare for Washington and know that the last time they played in Husky Stadium they got mauled by a Dog pack in 2007 when Washington rushed the ball 56 times for 334 yards in what was probably Tyrone Willingham’s best conference win.
That won’t happen this time but Washington is capable of beating the Bears it they can win the run game and not turn the ball over. Do those two things and not lose the kicking game and Washington could steal a game to end their season on a positve note. Cal is already going to a bowl and it really doesn’t matter if they win or lose because it won’t be a good bowl anyway. Cal’s players as a whole are probably better than those wearing the purple and the gold but this is an anticlimatic game for them and maybe they will lay another egg in Husky Stadium. That would be a great ending to this season of resurgence.
Scripps Interactive Newspapers Group
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