5 Thoughts on "Week 2" of PAC-12 Football

1. Arizona Schools: Yep, they're pretty bad. For Arizona to lose at home to Houston and ASU to lose at home to SDSU is downright embarrassing. ASU and UA might end up combining for just three or four wins this year if Saturday's games are any indication of how bad these two teams are. Speaking of bad teams...
2. Oregon State is a Dumpster Fire: They barely beat Barney Ball, aka FCS Portland State Vikings. The only reason why they won was that the Vikings committed a lot of errors. Aside from that bad win, they've been blown out by Colorado State and Minnesota. They've clearly taken a step backward from last year which is the opposite of what I thought would happen. The way they've played so far, It's hard to see how they win another game this year.
3. Cal Deserves Some Credit: Their week one win at UNC was unexpected, but UNC is supposed to be in a rebuilding year. Nonetheless, they came back to win it so they deserve some credit. They also had to come from behind to beat Weber State, but like Oregon State, they had to come from behind against an FCS opponent and did so mostly due to the mistakes made by the other team. Struggling against an FCS team is a big red flag, so maybe Cal really will end up near the bottom of the PAC-12, but for now they deserve some credit for two straight wins.
4. Oregon is Better: I don't know how to judge Nebraska so it's hard to distinguish the quality of the Ducks so far, but the passing offense is, as one might expect from watching fall camp drills, vastly improved. The defense is -- still -- terrible, though perhaps not as bad as last year. Yet, because the Arizona schools and Oregon State have substantially slid backward this year, it seems that the Ducks might end up 8 - 4 and go to a bowl game this year, instead of what I thought would be a 6-6 season. Sometimes you get lucky, right?
5. The Three Tiers: USC, Washington, and Stanford remain in the top tier -- combined, they will probably have 4 losses or fewer. Utah, UCLA, Colorado, WSU, Oregon, and Cal are in the middle tier. ASU, UA, and Oregon State are, by a mile, stuck in the bottom tier. This is where things are right now, so maybe USC will end up in a dumpster fire while Oregon State wins out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . LOL!

BTW, "Week 2" is in quotes because there were actually 3 weeks, but the first week had just a handful of games so no one is counting it as the first week of games.