Roundup: Another Hail Mary in another wild weekend

Saturday was kind of an interesting day in college football, huh? Eleven AP-ranked teams went down this weekend, and the drama did not skip the Pac-12: Every game featuring a Pac-12 school was decided by seven points or fewer, and no Pac-12 team won at home. So where to begin the wild weekend? How about Arizona State beating USC on a Hail Mary? Yeah it happened again, as Mike Bercovici found Jaelen Strong from 46 yards out as time expired to propel Arizona State past USC 38-34. I hate to be the 250-millionth person to use the word “epic,” but that’s exactly what Tim Healey’s radio call was (included in the link).

Meanwhile, USC coach Steve Sarkisian defended his team’s defense on the Hail Mary play; USC switched its defensive call before the final snap, something Sark said is not unusual.

Was one top-10 Pac-12 team going down at home enough for you when Arizona downed Oregon Thursday night? Too bad if it was, because Utah defeated then-No.8 UCLA 30-28 Saturday night in the Rose Bowl in large part due to Kendal Thompson replacing Travis Wilson at quarterback and kicker Andy Phillips, who was named a Lou Groza star of the week for going 3-3 on field goal attempts and recovering his own on-side kick against the Bruins. Sacking Brett Hundley 10 times didn't hurt either.

And for the Bruins perspective, here is what we learned in UCLA’s loss to Utah, courtesy of the Los Angeles Times.

Oh, and how about the last game to go final Saturday night? Cal beat Washington State 60-59, leading SB Nation’s Brian Floyd to say that Golden Bears-Cougars was “football with flamethrowers.” In one of the most ridiculous stats you’ll ever see, Cal gave up 812 yards and won.

Tough way to lose, but at least Connor Halliday set the FBS passing record by throwing for 734 yards in the loss to Cal. Dude has been money pretty much all year long.

Gina Mizell gives us her thoughts on Oregon State’s 36-31 win at Colorado, a game that the Beavers found a way to win in the second half (Ken Goe on the second link).

Although the Buffs lost, quarterback Sefo Liufau is “raising the bar” at Colorado, writes Kyle Ringo. He’ll be on top of the Buffs’ all-time lists soon enough.

I’m sure you’re trying to get over an excruciating 17-14 loss to Notre Dame, Stanford fans, so why don’t you read this Kyle Bonagura piece on Richard Sherman’s relationship with David Shaw. Sherm spent a weekend with the Stanford football team when it was playing at U-Dub, good stuff inside.

Yahoo! Sports’ Dr. Saturday blog declares Arizona a major College Football Playoff winner for the work it did Thursday night (and it also calls the Pac-12 overall a loser because, well, good luck coming out of this league with one loss). Also, Kyle Bonagura points out that Arizona became the first team to go from unranked to top 10 in one week in the AP poll; the Wildcats are now the No. 10 team in Associated Pressville.

Read Oregon linebacker Derrick Malone’s latest entry for The Oregonian. Don’t count the Ducks out yet, Malone says.

With basketball teams beginning practice over the weekend, maybe you should read this story from GoHuskies.com on the “brotherly bond” between Nigel Williams-Goss and Will Conroy.