08-26-2014, 10:49 AM
I get the love for UCLA, but then again, I'm married to a Bruin.
Here's how it happens:
UO and Stanford lost their defensive coordinators and key players on defense.
Jim Mora is in that magical third year when everything is supposed to come together for a head coach.
UCLA has UO, U$C and Stanford at home.
UCLA has UVa, Texas, ASU, C.al, CU and UW on the road. Difficult, but not impossible.
Stanford has a murderer's row plus rivalry game for its road schedule.
So the assumption is that UCLA sweeps its home games, maybe loses once on the road (UW?) and wins at home in the Pac-12 title game versus UO.
The flaw with the above scenario? Stanford is underappreciated.
Here's how it happens:
UO and Stanford lost their defensive coordinators and key players on defense.
Jim Mora is in that magical third year when everything is supposed to come together for a head coach.
UCLA has UO, U$C and Stanford at home.
UCLA has UVa, Texas, ASU, C.al, CU and UW on the road. Difficult, but not impossible.
Stanford has a murderer's row plus rivalry game for its road schedule.
So the assumption is that UCLA sweeps its home games, maybe loses once on the road (UW?) and wins at home in the Pac-12 title game versus UO.
The flaw with the above scenario? Stanford is underappreciated.
If there's one thing people have learned in Berkeley, it's that you can't put "Cal football" and "Rose Bowl" in the same sentence. The words just don't fit. You'd be better off linking "covered wagons" with "Mars travel." (Bruce Jenkins, Cal '70, SF Chronicle, Nov. 11, 2017)