Pac-12 filled with good games to kick off conference season

Establish a road map for success, and others are bound to follow.

It was the Cardinal versus USC, a clash of dichotomous styles, a former giant attempting to reclaim its status against the only school in the Pac-12 still considered one.

Stanford, rated in the top 10 nationally, is the defending Pac-12 and Rose Bowl champion. Other programs have noticed, and introduced concepts that more closely resemble the Cardinal.

The Bruins moved from spread concepts used under former offensive coordinator Noel Mazzone, to a more power-based look with Kennedy Polamalu – a look that very much resembles Stanford’s offense. The Bruins have a number of quality pieces, but I just don’t think they’re a complete enough team to hang with the Cardinal for an entire game.

Match ups will boil down to pretty much just Christian McCaffrey and Josh Rosen. Hundley could not make the plays late in games, often resulting in a loss.

Phillips, a junior nose tackle, injured his knee in Stanford’s season-opening 26-13 win over Kansas State. Ryan’s job at quarterback is to try to do anything too big, not force throws and most importantly do not turn the ball over. If Rosen can have a game of the same magnitude as last year’s game then I could easily see UCLA pulling off the upset.

This week, there are some huge conference games with big stakes on the line. The under is 5-2 in Stanford’s last 7 conference game. Last year’s 56-35 win at home saw Christian McCaffrey run for a career-high 243 yards en route to 369 all-purpose yards. The Bulldogs are 3-0 on the season but are playing this game where they torture everyone by pulling away with the win at the last second.

Vanilla’s the most popular ice cream flavor for a reason: it’s good. Defensively, Stanford is allowing 11.5 points and 344 yards per game. Change-of-pace back Bryce Love was used sparingly and the passing attack was limited. Don’t look now but they could be two games ahead of USC and UCLA next week.

Since their back to back matchups in 2012, Tyler Gaffney put on a show for Stanford with two TDs in a 24-10 win over UCLA at home in 2013. It’s not an easy thing to prepare for the multiple schemes that they ran offensively, and that’s a credit to our guys.

However, he could not keep up with the competition on the field seen by Heisman victor Marcus Mariota of OR and Hogan of Stanford. This game is going to be won or lost at the line of scrimmage.

Stanford’s domination of this series looms large.

“It’s hard to emulate him with anybody”, coach Jim Mora said.

UCLA’s sprinkling in of elements reminiscent of Stanford fits Mora’s National Football League background. Colorado QB Sefo Liufau has thrown 89 straight passes without an interception.

However, UCLA may find scoring opportunities scarce.

Saturday presents an opportunity for the Bruins to legitimize themselves against a Stanford team they seem perfectly created to beat, if only because they might be the only team that has a chance to contain the firework show that is Christian McCaffrey.