CU volleyball: Tough road swing welcomes Buffs in Pac-12 play

This is the third straight season in which UCLA has made an appearance in the AP Top 10.

The Crimson Tide had a few self-inflicted wounds and some unlucky bounces in Saturday’s 43-37 loss to Ole Miss.

“Paul’s looking a lot more explosive”, sophomore running back Nate Starks said.

No. 1 Wide Receiver David Richards 14 for 203 yards, three touchdowns.

Anybody know what to make of Arizona State? They are talking about how they feel about the Bruins defense and what they perceive as trash talking and chippy-ness towards their team. Snuka led the Pac-12 in double-doubles in 2014 with 25. And it certainly doesn’t hurt the Sun Devils’ playoff case for Texas A&M to continue to win.

It’s nearly certain that nobody in the conference will go through the regular season without a loss. It’s only September, but every game matters big time in the South, because not a whole lot separates five of the six teams. He had two interceptions last season, and returned both for touchdowns.

Cal will begin 2016 at the NorCal Classic on January 8, hosted this year by San Jose State.

Yet by some weird twist of fate, the Trojans have struggled in their first conference road tests on a semi-consistent basis. They didn’t look good at all in non-conference.

11 (tie). Oregon State (2-1): The Beavers, like UCLA and UW, have turned the offense over to a true freshman, and Seth Collins has done well to lead them to two wins.

Michigan is led by two physical runners in De’Veon Smith (5-foot-11, 228 pounds) and Ty Isaac (6-3, 240.) Both runners aren’t prone to dance around the edges, but like to take it right at an opposing defense. Tagaloa sat out last season after transferring from Cal. In 2013 at Cal, Tagaloa started seven games at the tackle position. Adams is expected back from his broken finger – and likely could have played last Saturday if the opponent was somebody stronger than Georgia State – and he has the right combination of arm strength and athleticism that Oregon needs. For now the committee should just be thankful that it no longer has to deal with a possible 12-0 BYU team as well. Up next: home vs. No. 21 Stanford.

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Freshman quarterback Josh Rosen had a spectacular debut against Virginia, but has since completed just 33 of 65 passes for 329 yards, two touchdowns and four interceptions in wins over UNLV and BYU. But their freshman quarterback finally looked like a kid who was in high school at this time previous year. Its offensive passing game (ranked 62nd in the nation) will face the 94th-ranked pass defense of Arizona, while its 40th-ranked pass defense will look to limit the 45th-ranked aerial attack of the Wildcats.

It becomes even more noteworthy when you discover those two years were 1921 and 1919 when team such as the Olympic Club, U.S.S. Boston, Multnomah Athletic Club and the Mare Island Marines were on various conference schedules. At one point, the Trojans won an unfathomable 30 consecutive sets before dropping the second game against Oklahoma last weekend (USC eventually defeated the Sooners in four). Only three of those plays were passes, including a 19-yard touchdown toss from Rosen to Jordan Payton. So we’re going to move forward that way. Stanford was great in Week 3, winning on the road at USC, but there is concern about quarterback Kevin Hogan.

“Our special teams play took a step backwards in that game”, Mendenhall said.

Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott was on hand for the Stanford-USC game at the L.A. Coliseum and conceded to the media before the game that talks with AT&T to get the Pac-12 Network on DirecTV have collapsed and that there is no chance to increase the network’s paltry 12 million subscribers “in the foreseeable future”.