Roundup: Goff trying to match Mariota

There’s a juicy quarterback duel going down in Eugene this weekend with Jared Goff trying to match Marcus Mariota in Autzen. Expect mucho scoring in this bad boy. You can also hear Jared Goff on the Pac-12 Networks Football Podcast here.

Well, it could be tough sledding for the true frosh in Oregon this weekend. Everyone knows how loud that place gets… How loud, though? NCAA lists Autzen Stadium as the second-loudest in college football. It also might be a tough game for Cal because Yahoo! Sports lists Marcus Mariota at the top of its Heisman Watch.

Here is some very good news out of Corvallis: Storm Woods is back at practice, though he will not play in this weekend’s game against Colorado. The Oregon State running back suffered a concussion against Utah a couple of games back.

I highly recommend watching this video about Brett and Paris Hundley, a feature about Brett’s sister’s battle with epilepsy and the close bond between the two.

Stanford’s stout offensive line will be without one of its key cogs against the Cougs because guard David Yankey will miss the Wazzu game with a family issue. Joshua Garnett, a Seattle-area native (Puyallup -- pronounced PEW-al-up, as I learned earlier this week), will take his place and start in front of his family and friends at Century Link Arena. It should also come as no surprise that Stanford is the smartest top-25 college football school.

After bowing out in the WNBA playoffs with the Seattle Storm, Tina Thompson said farewell, as she officially retired from professional basketball. Shout out to former Pac-12.com staffer Ashley Atwell for this write-up; doin’ big thangs with the NBA and such.

Hmmm… I’m feeling like a Gregg Bell article this morning, so how about this Unleashed piece on the relentless Hau’oli Kikaha overcoming all? Another very strong piece from GB.

With this 3-1 start to the season, CougCenter asks its followers if Washington State is a bowl-bound team this year. In line with my vote (“yes,” of course), 82 percent of responders think the Cougs will get to six wins.

Great story here about how the Colorado flooding tested Nikki Lindow’s resolve. Lindow, a middle blocker on the CU volleyball team, decided to leave her team at the airport to go help save her family’s property. The preceding link was a Kevin Cohen joint, and here’s B.G. Brooks’ piece on Lindow. Nothing against Kev Kev, of course, but I HIGHLY recommend you take a look at Brooks’ story.

With football taking a break in Salt Lake City this weekend, this is as good of a time as any to tell you about how Utah women’s soccer is ready to step it up a notch in Pac-12 play this year. Head coach Rich Manning feels as though he has his strongest team since the Utes joined the Pac-12, so look out for the 4-1-4 Utes.

If you missed "The Drive" last night, here is a little bit of Todd Graham’s inspirational speech at halftime of Arizona State’s game at Stanford. They turned a 29-0 halftime deficit into a 39-28 margin at one point, so I suppose the talk did its job.

Now that Northern Arizona, UNLV and UTSA are out of the way, Arizona is looking forward to conference play. Huskies on tap first.