10 Thoughts for September 7 2015 (All about football)

Extra thoughts for lots of teams.

1. Seattle Seahawks: What we know for sure, is that Frank Clark and Tyler Lockett are two draft picks that will play a big part in the Seahawks team. Lockett and Wilson connected on a 63 yard TD reception on the first play of the final preseason game, and Clark stripped the quarterback in the end zone, resulting in a defensive touchdown. Also Thomas Rawls and BJ Daniels looked really good in the final preseason game -- good enough to be kept by the team while others were dropped. I could not see why pundits expected Christine Michael to remain on the team while they thought that Rawls would be dropped -- what I saw in the preseason was Rawls always running hard and knocking down opponents, while Christine Michael was inconsistent -- and in the end the Seahawks traded Michael while keeping Rawls. 
2. Philadelphia Eagles: Mark it down, that the Eagles will be playing in the NFC Championship -- the final preseason game has shown that Sam Bradford is a keeper and will make this offense a prolific scorer. Most people thought that by trading away Matt Barkley, Chip Kelly was making room to keep Tim Tebow (like this ESPN reporter), but even though Tebow did well in the final preseason game, the fact of the matter is that he hasn't been able to exorcise his bad throwing motion -- when under pressure he'd revert. I thought that Tebow had changed his throwing motion, but alas, I was wrong and he hadn't yet gotten rid of his lifelong bad habits. Speaking of bad throwing habits...
3. Stanford Cardinals: Senior QB Kevin Hogan really does have an ugly throwing motion. If you go back and watch the Cardinal loss to Northwestern, every throw required a windup with the ball behind his body, low and away. It gave the corner and safety the time to reach Hogan's target, either to grab the interception or to stop the play for zero yards after catch. On defense, the front three (plus the hybrid linebacker-end) were terrible, and got pushed around. When people picked Oregon to win the North, it was because they had very little confidence in Stanford.
4. Hawaii Rainbow Warriors: As I suspected, having a higher caliber quarterback like Max Wittek made a huge difference for coach Norm Chow. Note however, that Wittek obviously hasn't learned to quit throwing the bullet even when his target is just 10 yards away, and he still has a tendency to throw high, especially early. Colorado's Sefo Liufao hasn't gotten any better from last year, which pretty much condemns Colorado to the bottom of the PAC-12.
5. Utah Utes: Boy did their defense look good, flying around. The defense provided the margin of Utah's win over Michigan, while Michigan more or less shut down Utah's Devonte Booker. While Utah doesn't look like it'll end up in the basement of the PAC-12, it certainly doesn't look like it'll be able to compete for the top of the conference either.
6. USC Trojans: Playing against Arkansas State's option game was an excellent preparation game for USC's late season game against Oregon -- and it looks extremely promising. USC ended up playing 67 players (including nearly half the freshman class) but more importantly they were regularly rotating 2-deep from the start of the game, and there was no drop-off. Yes the Trojans gave up 484 yards on defense, but the Red Wolves could only muster one score, a touchdown. Put it this way: No one else in the PAC-12 held their opponents to fewer points, including games against FCS schools. The offensive line looked shaky in the first half, but his throw to Whitney while going down, showed just how strong his arm is. This is a true team and one that looks like it really does have a chance to make it to the playoffs. As across the board except for the offensive line, which gets just a C. Because of the starting time (11 pm east), I expect most media writers will dismiss this game, rather than consider how well USC's four-deep, played.
7. Oregon Ducks: Oregon's offense hasn't lost a beat with Vernon Adams coming in and late at that! When he absorbs the rest of the offensive playbook, their offense will be downright impossible to stop, except of course, other teams with sufficient 2-deep talent (ahem, Ohio State, USC, Alabama). The defense is a whole other matter, however. Against an FCS team, Oregon gave up 42 points, and that's a possible sign that Oregon will have a difficult time against the PAC-12 South teams, while its game against Cal will be a wild affair. An aside: EWU's LB John Kriefels should be forced to sit out at least four games for his illegal hit on Adams, which resulted in his getting tossed from the game, as that sort of dangerous hit is not just poor sportsmanship but could have cost Adams his career.
8. Washington State Cougars: Dude, why are you stepping backwards? You don't lose to Portland State at home, when they're debuting with a new head coach and a quarterback who last played football (at BYU) in 2012. That's embarrassing for you and the rest of the PAC-12!
9. UCLA Bruins: It is difficult for me to say this, but Josh Rosen, a true freshman, looked really good in his debut -- averaged 10.0 yards per pass which is tops in the PAC-12; in fact, their team looked good all-around, against Virginia. Too bad though that the Bruins lost a key member of their D-Line, Eddie Vanderdoes, for the season. Nevertheless, it looks like the Bruins are in the top tier of the PAC-12 -- we'll know a lot more in two weeks, when they play BYU, an often overlooked but tough team to beat (just ask Nebraska).
10. My ranking of the PAC-12, from best to worst, after week 1: UCLA, USC, Oregon, Utah, Cal, Arizona, Oregon State, Arizona State, Washington, Stanford, Colorado, Washington State. If there was a way to rank WSU lower, I would. I cannot reiterate how bad it was for WSU to lose to an FCS team that was debuting a new head coach and quarterback, and a team that they had paid to fly up to Pullman. F-minus for WSU.