Pac-12 Football Notes: USC, UCLA Reliving 1988; Oregon Rolling

Stanford suffers 10th straight conference loss in heartbreaking fashion

We address three Pac-12 football questions this week:

1. Is it 1988 in L.A. again?

It's kind of eerie what going on in Los Angeles with UCLA and USC with regard to the  parallels with 1988.

Both teams have started this season 6-0, just as they did in 1988.

Both teams have a Heisman Trophy candidate quarterback leading the way, as they did in 1988.

One team’s quarterback is a transfer from powerhouse Oklahoma, as it was in 1988, and the other team has a quarterback who had steadily improved over several years as the starter and had become a star, as it was in 1988.

Troy Aikman, who had come over from the Sooners, led the Bruins in 1988, and Rodney Peete, a senior in his third year as a starter, was in charge at USC. This year, fifth-year starter Dorian Thompson-Robinson is leading the Bruins, and Oklahoma transfer Caleb Williams heads USC.

In 1988, like this year, USC and UCLA were both ranked in the top 12 after six games. UCLA was at No. 1 and the Trojans at No. 3 in 1988. USC at No. 7 and UCLA No. 11 this year.

USC and UCLA met on Nov. 19 with a berth in the Rose Bowl on the line in 1988. This season, USC and UCLA will meet -- you guessed it -- on Nov. 19, perhaps with a berth in the Rose Bowl on the line.

USC won that matchup in 1988, 31-22, even though Peete had the measles and was questionable for the game right up until kickoff. The Trojans lost to Michigan in the Rose Bowl, UCLA beat Arkansas in the Cotton Bowl, and the Bruins wound up ranked sixth and USC seventh.

Peete finished second in the Heisman voting and Aikman third, as Barry Sanders took home the trophy in 1988. Both Williams and Thompson-Robinson are among the top five in the Heisman Trophy betting odds following Saturday's games. 

Will USC and UCLA be playing for a Rose Bowl berth this year? They seem to have established themselves as the favorites following the Bruins’ victory over preseason favorite Utah, while the Trojans took care of pesky Washington State.

But the race for the Roses (or a College Football Playoff berth) is far from over, and so is the Heisman race.

UCLA has played only one road game, and that was against winless Colorado. The Bruins have a bye this week, but then travel to Oregon for a contest against the 12th-ranked Ducks in Eugene, where Oregon has won 22 straight, the third-longest home winning streak in the country. Next Saturday USC faces Utah in Salt Lake City, and the Utes have won 22 of their past 23 home games.

If UCLA and USC win those games, and Thompson-Robinson and Williams play well, then the USC-UCLA matchup on Nov. 19 could well be for first place in the Pac-12 and could be for the Heisman Trophy. Then the two L.A. teams and two star quarterbacks could conceivably play again in the Pac-12 championship game, a scenario no one could have imagined in 1988.

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2. Were we premature in dismissing Oregon?

When Oregon got beaten to pulp 49-3 by Georgia in the Ducks’ opener, Oregon was dropped from the rankings and dismissed as a player in the Pac-12 race. And Oregonian columnist Bill Oran noted that in his report following Oregon’s 49-22 trouncing of Arizona on Saturday, starting his column this way:

When Oregon had its doors blown off by Georgia on the first Saturday of the season, it was hard to envision the Ducks recovering to make much of a splash on the national stage.

A 46-point blowout tends to lay a heavy blanket of fog on the horizon.

That night in early September, Bo Nix still looked out of place in green and yellow. He dropped two back-breaking interceptions into the hands of Georgia defenders that must have had Auburn fans nodding knowingly.

Since that meek surrender to Georgia, the Ducks have won five straight games and scored more than 40 points in all five. Even with that three-point mess against Georgia on its record, Oregon now leads the Pac-12 in scoring at 42.0 points per game and total offense at 512.5 yards per contest, the latter ranking fifth in the country.

In the five games since the Georgia nightmare, Nix has completed 73.8 percent of his passes (110-for-149) with 12 touchdowns and one interception, while rushing for 294 yards and eight touchdowns. 

We can’t dismiss the Georgia loss, of course, and none of the Ducks’ last five victims is currently ranked. We will get a better gauge of Oregon when it faces UCLA at home on Oct. 22 after a bye week. The Ducks have not lost a home game since an overtime defeat against Stanford on Sept. 22, 2018, and they should have won that one.

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3. How did Stanford lose to Oregon State?

With the clock approaching midnight on the West Coast and 3 a.m. in the East, Stanford seemed assured of its first victory over an FBS team this season. The Cardinal had just kicked a field goal to give itself a five-point lead with 58 seconds left, and when Oregon State started its final drive from its own 24-yard line with 54 seconds remaining, it had no timeouts.

The Beavers seemed doomed when it got to its own 44 and the clocking ticking under 20 seconds as they hurried to get off another play. Instead of spiking the ball, Ben Gulbranson heaved a pass into double coverage. Somehow, Tre'Shaun Harrison came down with it, spun away from the two defenders and went the rest of the way to complete a 56-yard touchdown reception with 13 seconds left.

Stanford lost 28-27 after blowing a 24-10 lead. Cardinal quarterback Tanner McKee, who had been sacked 16 times in previous games, was not sacked at all and did not throw any interceptions. Yet Stanford suffered its 11th consecutive loss to an FBS opponent. 

More depressing was that it was Stanford’s 10th straight loss to a Pac-12 opponent, Stanford’s longest such streak in 61 years. The odd things about the 10-game conference losing streak is that it began immediately after Stanford beat then-No. 3 Oregon to improve to 3-2 last season.

“What is going to get lost,” Stanford coach David Shaw said after Saturday’s loss, “is that we probably played our best game of the year.”

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Top Five Pac-12 Teams

1. UCLA (6-0, 3-0 Pac-12) – Unranked in preseason, the Bruins have defeated ranked foes the past two weeks.

2. USC (6-0, 4-0) – Trojans are unbeaten but have not faced a ranked foe. Utah is next.

3. Oregon (5-1, 3-0) – Ducks offense and Bo Nix have been impressive the past five games.

4. Utah (4-2, 2-1) – Utes are not out of the Pac-12 race yet, but must beat USC next week.

5. Washington (4-2, 1-2) – Huskies’ credibility to a big hit with Saturday’s loss to Arizona State.

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Pac-12 Player of the Year standings

1. Quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson, UCLA – 42-for-56 (75%), 7 TD passes, 1 interception, 61 rushing yards in wins over Washington and Utah.

2. Quarterback Caleb Williams, USC – 14 TD passes, 1 interception for nation’s No. 7 team

3. Quarterback Bo Nix, Oregon – 20-for-25 passing, 70 rushing yards and three rushing touchdowns against Arizona Saturday.

4. Running back Zach Charbonnet, UCLA – Leads Pac-12 in rushing (123.0 yards per game) and averaging 7.1 yards per carry after running for 198 yards against Utah

5. Defensive lineman Tuli Tuipulotu, USC – 12.5 tackles for loss, tied for the most in the country.

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Cover photo of USC's Caleb Williams by Jayne Kamin-Oncea, USA TODAY Sports

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