Pac-10 offers no respite
PULLMAN – When top-ranked USC loses on the road to an Oregon State team that got thumped a few weeks earlier at Penn State, the national media jumps on the defeat as further proof of the Pac-10 Conference’s weakness.
When Florida loses at home against a Mississippi team that lost at home to Vanderbilt the week before, it’s trumpeted as evidence how deep the Southeastern Conference is.
Yet this week, the Trojans have to quickly shake off their first defeat.
On the horizon Saturday is one of the more important Pac-10 games of the season, at home vs. the 23rd-ranked Oregon Ducks.
Such is life in the supposedly weak Pac-10.
“We’re bouncing back,” USC coach Pete Carroll said. “We have to come back from last week. … All of our focus is headed toward Oregon and turning our sights on that one.”
The Ducks offer a different type of challenge than the Beavers, who pounded USC up front en route to the 27-21 upset.
“Obviously, we’re looking at that as a blueprint of success,” Oregon coach Mike Bellotti said. “But we don’t do some of that blocking scheme, and I’m not sure changing at this point is going to help us. But we’re trying to figure out a way to duplicate that.”
It’s also possible it wasn’t what the Beavers did as much as USC not doing its job.
“We didn’t play very well at the line of scrimmage,” Carroll said. “They blocked us pretty well. That coupled with some sloppy tackling was able to get them enough consistency that they could control the ball.”
Whatever the reason, USC’s loss again puts the Pac-10 title race in a state of flux.
“I’ve said it before,” California coach Jeff Tedford said. “It’s very difficult to get through the Pac-10 undefeated. It doesn’t matter who you are.”
But if you’re the Trojans, it’s kind of expected.
Around the conference
Stanford didn’t emerge from its win over Washington unscathed. Running back Toby Gerhart suffered a concussion, missing most of the contest. Coach Jim Harbaugh said Tuesday that Gerhart hopes to practice and be cleared to play this week at Notre Dame. … The Oregon quarterback position is getting more muddled, not clearer. Justin Roper, who started the first game, was expected back at practice Monday off his knee injury but came up sick and didn’t participate. Even if he goes the rest of the week, it’s not etched in stone he’ll start over Jeremiah Masoli. “I don’t think Justin has played enough football to have that position dedicated to him,” Bellotti said. … Oregon State also has to get over its upset of USC quickly. The Beavers travel to No. 15 Utah for a Thursday night game. “It’s a tremendous mental challenge as well as physical,” coach Mike Riley said. The Utes are 5-0 and are 4-0 since 2003 against Pac-10 teams at home. … Arizona State had a bye last week but not a week off. The Sun Devils went back to basics and pounded each other for a couple of days. “It was a good week for us, not just the bye, but we needed to spend some time practicing against ourself and improve,” coach Dennis Erickson said. … The Sun Devils travel to Cal and Tedford thinks the bye week may mean Erickson will have some tricks ready. “You have to expect the unexpected,” Tedford said. Erickson will have to guess which Cal quarterback will play as Nate Longshore and Kevin Riley will split reps with the ones this week and Tedford will make a determination before the game.
Cougar notes
Coming off the homecoming loss to Oregon, the Cougars felt they had one of their more productive practices on Tuesday.
“I think today was one of our best practices,” junior running back Dwight Tardy said. “We have a new program, a new offense. It’s taken a while for us to get some confidence in our plays a little bit. Once we start getting some confidence, we’ll be all right.”
Defensive end Kevin Kooyman, coming off a high ankle sprain that caused him to miss the Oregon game, practiced and was running with just a slight limp. … Steven Ayers spent most of the practice running with the starting offense at left tackle. Vaughn Lesuma worked with the No. 2 unit. … Strong-side linebacker Cory Evans still is out with a hamstring problem and has been replaced by Myron Beck. True freshman Louis Bland has moved ahead of Kenny Dunn at the other outside linebacker spot.