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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Pac-12 notes: Bruins turn in control of South

PULLMAN – Everyone but Colorado has a shot to win the Pac-12 South, but only UCLA doesn’t need help along the way. Here is how it shakes out: UCLA wins against intracity rival USC and takes care of Stanford then faces Oregon in the Pac-12 championship game. If the Bruins beat the Trojans but lose to Stanford, Arizona takes their place, as long as the Wildcats win out. ASU can still win the South, but it needs to win two games and have the Trojans beat UCLA. If there’s a five-way tie at 6-3 it’ll be Utah vs. Oregon in Santa Clara. But for now, it’s UCLA’s division to lose and none of the contenders looks better equipped to fulfill it. The Bruins have never looked better than in their 62-27 win over then No. 15 Arizona State in Tempe in late September. But UCLA followed that statement win with a couple losses while the Sun Devils bounced back quickly and just kept winning. UCLA is alone in first place now, however, and appears to be peaking at the right time with impressive wins over Arizona and at Washington the last two weeks. “If you were going to do a graph it would be rather jagged, but always trending upward,” said coach Jim Mora of UCLA’s season. “I think the last couple of weeks we’ve just been a more consistent football team in all areas.” Just a week ago a berth in the conference championship game was not even the loftiest of ASU’s goals. Ranked in the Top 10 with chances to pad its resume against Arizona and then Oregon in the conference championship, the Sun Devils were a playoff contender if they could just keep winning. But they couldn’t, losing to OSU in Corvallis and taking their destiny out of their hands and divvying it up amongst their divisional rivals. Coach Todd Graham took the blame for the loss, and apologized to his team for a defensive play call during a critical third-and-8 that the Beavers converted. Graham had called a seven-man rush that ASU had not yet tried and the Sun Devils gave up a 67-yard touchdown pass. “You don’t need to take those kinds of chances,” Graham told reporters during his weekly press conference. “It’s OK to do the things that we do, but I tried to do something new, and it was a bad call. You don’t get those things back.”
Cougs CB White to start
Charleston White will start for Washington State at the boundary cornerback position in place of Daquawn Brown, according to the WSU depth chart released on Tuesday. Brown is suspended for the first half of this weekend’s game against ASU because he was issued a penalty for targeting in WSU’s last game, a 39-32 win over OSU. Starting opposite White will be freshman cornerback Pat Porter, who did not make the trip to Corvallis but started the prior two games for WSU.
Bears not thinking bowl
A season ago California avoided the lifelong stain of an 0-12 season thanks only to a skin-of-their-teeth victory over FCS foe Portland State in Berkeley, California. Just one year later the Golden Bears will be eligible for a bowl game if they can beat either rival Stanford this weekend or visiting BYU the following Saturday. Doing so would likely distinguish Cal as undoubtedly college football’s most improved team. Still, coach Sonny Dykes says all talk of the postseason is verboten in Berkeley. “I’ve always felt we don’t need to dangle carrots in front of our players,” Dykes said. “They work hard, they’re motivated.”