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Pac-12 football stat pack: Week 5

by Ryan McGrady
Sep 25, 2013

I said it last week and I’ll say it again: the Pac-12 football slogan should be, “Pac-12 Football… Respect It.” Another phenomenal showing in non-conference play as Pac-12 schools went 6-0 by a combined score of 228-70 while increasing its non-conference record to 29-4, which leads all other conferences. That’s good, right? Oh and a side note, in the battle between the state of Washington and the state of Idaho, it was the UW Huskies and the WSU Cougars that prevailed over the squads from the land of Potatoes by a combined score of 98-0. Lastly, Stanford is really good at football. Let the full slate of conference games begin.

Arizona

  • After a bye, the Wildcats look to Bear Down when they travel to Seattle to face No. 16 Washington. Arizona has defeated at least one AP top 25 team in eight of the previous nine seasons (twice in 2012). The last eight UA-UW games in Seattle have seen six games decided by a touchdown or less. UW leads the scoring margin 258-254.
     
  • Arizona owns a +6 turnover margin entering this week and has outscored opponents 42-0 off turnovers this year.

Arizona State

  • Marion Grice leads the nation in scoring this week, even though he has played only three games – and a lot of national players have participated in four games. He's averaging 16.0 points per game, which is 2.0 points per game more than second place (Storm Johnson of Central Florida). Grice has eight touchdowns (six rushing, two receiving) and is averaging a touchdown nearly 12 percent of the time he touches the ball. For his career he is averaging a touchdown per every 7.9 touches (27 touchdowns on 212 touches).
     
  • Against Stanford, ASU entered the fourth quarter trailing 39-7 and had gained just 192 yards on offense. In the fourth the Sun Devils outscored the Cardinal 21-3 and racked up 225 yards on offense.

Cal

  • The current combined record of Cal’s first four opponents is 14-1 with Northwestern (4-0), Ohio State (4-0) and Oregon (3-0) all unbeaten with the lone loss for Portland State (3-1) to Cal. The four teams have combined to average 48.7 points and 567.5 yards per game over those 15 contests.
     
  • True freshman Jared Goff is the top quarterback in the country, averaging 435.3 passing yards per game and 429.7 yards of total offense. He became the second Cal quarterback to throw for 400 yards in back-to-back games with his 485 passing yards against Portland State after throwing for 450 in the season opener against Northwestern. He threw for 371 yards and three touchdowns for the first time in his career against Ohio State.

Colorado

  • When Colorado heads to Corvallis to face Oregon State on Saturday, the Buffs will get to play a football game for the first time in 21 days. This will mark Colorado’s first-ever appearance in Corvallis; two previous trips to Oregon to face the Beavers saw the games played in Portland (1931, 1963).
     
  • Colorado junior Paul Richardson and Oregon State junior Brandin Cooks rank 1-2 in the nation (and thus the conference) in receiving: Richardson is first in yards per game (208.5) with Cooks second (159.8), but Cooks has the edge in receptions per game (10.75 to 10.5). Cooks leads the nation in receiving TDs with seven, while Richardson is tied for ninth. Richardson has two consecutive 200-yard games to open 2013; a third one would tie the NCAA record held by two others.

Oregon

  • Oregon has scored 50 or more points in three straight games five times in school history, including its current streak, but has never done so in four consecutive contests. The Ducks look to make history Saturday on the Pac-12 Networks against Cal’s 121st ranked defense.
     
  • Look for a lot of plays to be run in this game as both teams are lightning fast between plays on offense. The Ducks rank last (125th) in the FBS in time of possession at 22:18 per game – 1:17 less than the next closest team (San Jose State at 22:34). Oregon’s defense sees an average of 80 plays per game. Cal is averaging 95 plays per game on offense.

Oregon State

  • Last week Brandin Cooks tied Mike Hass with a school-record 14 receptions to go along with 141 yards receiving against San Diego State. He moved into seventh place on OSU’s all-time receiving yards list (2,181), passing Robb Thomas, and bumped up to ninth place on the school’s all-time receptions list (141), passing Steve Coury and Thomas. It was Cooks’ eighth 100-yard game and his second this season with at least 12 catches. Coupled with his 13 grabs in the season opener against Eastern Washington, Cooks joins Hass as the only Beavers with at least two 12-plus reception games.
     
  • Three of Oregon State’s first four games have been decided by four points or less. No other team in the country has had more than two games decided by four or less points.

Stanford

  • The win over ASU on Saturday gave Stanford a 3-0 record to start the season for the fourth straight year. The last time Stanford started 3-0 in four consecutive seasons was 1908-11 (playing rugby-style rules).
     
  • Stanford travels to Seattle to face Washington State this week (not a typo – WSU hosts an annual game in Seattle). In last year’s meeting with the Cougars, Stanford recorded a school-record 10 sacks and 15 tackles for loss. Stanford enters the weekend with the nation’s second-best overall winning streak at 11 games (Ohio State leads all FBS programs with 16 consecutive wins).

UCLA

  • Last week against New Mexico State, the Bruins’ 692 yards of total offense was a school record for one game. The previous best was 679 at Arizona State in 1994. They also set a new record for first downs in a game with 39.
     
  • With their 59-point output, the Bruins opened a season with three straight 40-point games for the first time since 2005. The 158 points for the Bruins this season are the most they have scored in a three-game stretch since 1997, when they had 172 over a trio of contests.

USC

  • For USC it’s all about defense. The Trojan defense leads the nation in red zone defense, is second in tackles for a loss, third in rushing defense, fourth in total defense and sacks, 11th in scoring defense and 12th in pass efficiency defense. USC is allowing just 230 total yards a game – no opponent has eclipsed 300 yards yet – including only 59 on the ground, and just 11 points per outing. The Trojans average four sacks and 9.5 tackles for loss each game. USC hasn’t surrendered a point yet in the first quarter (and just seven in the third quarter) and its first string defense didn’t give up a TD until last week.
     
  • Huge matchup in the desert this Saturday. USC has a 19-10 edge in its series with Arizona State. The Trojans had an 11-game series winning streak (the longest in the series) snapped in their last visit to Tempe in 2011, when my guy Bo Moos sacked Matt Barkley. USC leads the series against ASU in games played in Tempe 8-6.

Utah

Washington

  • The Huskies dominated Idaho State 56-0 last week while racking up 680 yards on offense to start their season 3-0 for the first time since 2001. As far as the Huskies’ stats go back to 1947, the Huskies have amassed over 500 total yards in three straight games for the first time ever. The 1997 season is the only time UW went over 500 total yards three times (non-consecutive). Also, UW has exceeded the 600-yard mark in back-to-back weeks for the first time ever.
     
  • Washington holds an 18-10-1 edge in the series against Arizona, with the Huskies taking 11 of the last 18. In a showdown between two high-powered offenses on Saturday, UW comes into the game ranked No. 3 in the NCAA in total offense, No. 9 in rushing offense, No. 17 in passing offense and No. 3 in third-down conversions

Washington State

  • Last week, WSU shut out Idaho 42-0. The program’s last shutout was also against Idaho, when Wazzu beat the Vandals 25-0 in 2003 in Seattle.
     
  • The Cougars enter Saturday’s contest against Stanford trailing the all-time series 37-25-1, with the Cardinal owning wins in the last five meetings. WSU’s last win in the series came in 2007, 33-17 in Pullman. The Cougs will need a big game from Connor Halliday, who tossed four touchdown passes last week. He now has 34 career touchdown passes, pushing him past Jeff Tuel (33) and into seventh place all-time

(Credit: Stats Inc., the sports information departments of the Pac-12)

 

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