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Pac-12 football stat pack: Week 13

by Ryan McGrady
Nov 21, 2013
Ahsan Awan/Associated Press

“How great is ball?” – Yogi Roth

Arizona

  • The Bear Downs dropped a tough one at home to Washington State last week, but it wasn’t because Ka’Deem Carey had an off week. Carey scored twice, including once on the ground and once receiving. He now has 45 career touchdowns, which is three shy of tying Art Luppino’s school record of 48.
     
  • Ka’Deem Carey continues his chase for the school rushing record, and an “average” game vs. Oregon makes that a realistic possibility this week. But 117 yards may not be easy to come by against the Ducks, who are the only team the last two seasons to hold the Wildcats under 100 rushing yards as a team. Arizona will honor 18 seniors this Saturday as the Wildcats seek to snap a five-game losing streak in the series, having last defeated the Ducks in Tucson in 2007. A win against No. 5 Oregon would have Wildcat fans dancing in the streets of Tucson and the team dancing in the locker room. (Note: Watch until the very end if you want to see RichRod’s face turn the same color as his shirt.)

Arizona State

  • With its win over Oregon State, ASU has reached six conference wins for just the fourth time in 36 seasons since it joined the league in 1978, setting up a Pac-12 South showdown in Pasadena against UCLA. Marion Grice scored two more touchdowns last week and is the 15th different Pac-10/12 player since 1978 with 20 or more touchdowns in a single season.
     
  • Saturday is the first time ASU and UCLA will meet both ranked in the AP poll since ’86. The key to the game for the Fork Daddies will be points off of turnovers. ASU now has outscored the opposition 101-35 in points off turnovers and has scored on 18-of-25 opponent turnovers. Opponents have scored on just five of 15 ASU turnovers. If the Fork’ems win, they win the South Division and it will be the most wonderful time in years for ASU.

Cal

  • The Bears’ streak of consecutive losses in Pac-12 Conference play reached lucky number 13 last week after their loss at Colorado. On the bright side, Jared Goff is still racking up passing yards like it’s his job. Now with 3,324 yards through the air this year, Goff ranks second on Cal’s season passing yardage list. Pat Barnes is first with 3,499 yards in 1996. The magic number for Goff is 176 to become the all-time single-season passing king in Berkeley. Another magic number is 39: That’s the number of team passing yards Cal needs this week to break the school’s single-season record (3,705 in 2003). That’s a lot of magic.
     
  • Good times in the Bay Area this weekend as Cal travels to Palo Alto for the 116th Big Game. The Bears have lost the last three to the Cardinal, having last defeated Stanford  in 2009 when the Bears upset then-No. 14 Stanford, 34-28, at Stanford Stadium. If the Bears’ offense struggles against the vaunted Stanford defense, then Cal’s punter (and star of the Pac-12 football stat pack) Cole Leininger will need to have a big day to win the field position battle. Last week he averaged 54.2 yards on four punts, the highest average of his career. Cole is continuing the tradition in Berkeley of punters proving that they are, in fact, people just like the rest of us.

Colorado

  • Colorado snapped a 14-game Pac-12 Conference losing streak with a 41-24 win over Cal last Saturday in Boulder. I’m not gonna say it’s because they won another coin toss, but it certainly didn’t hurt to get things off to a good start in pregame. CU is now 2-8 on the coin toss in 2013 (this is our favorite stat of 2013). To celebrate, here is a video of Colorado winning the coin toss when Cal visited Boulder in 2011. Very exciting stuff. That means that in their last two meetings in Boulder the Buffs have won both coin tosses! I’m proud that I was the 455th person to watch this video.
     
  • Paul “P-Rich” Richardson now has 71 catches for 1,201 yards and 16.9 per with nine touchdowns this season. He now holds CU’s mark for single-season receiving yards, breaking the 21-year-old mark of 1,149 set by Charles E. Johnson in 1992. He’s inching closer to the season receptions mark of 78 (D.J. Hackett, 2003, as his 71 is fourth-most). The TD record is 11 (Derek McCoy, 2003). It was his sixth 100-yard game of the season, tying the school record. Watch out, record books. You’re going to need some updating.

 Oregon

  • QB Marcus Mariota extended his Pac-12-record streak of pass attempts without an interception to 353 in the Oregon victory over Utah. The old mark was 216 by USC's Brad Otton from 1994-95. Mariota is now the NCAA career leader in interception percentage at 0.97 percent (600 or more attempts). He could throw an INT on his next two attempts and still lead. In related Mariota news, he’s 275 yards of total offense shy of becoming the fifth player at Oregon to hit 7,000 for his career. Seven thousand yards is nearly four miles. Another 100 miles and Mariota’s total yardage could get you all the way from Eugene to Portlandia.
     
  • The No. 5 Duckies are in control of their own destiny in the Pac-12 North and will host the conference championship game if they win their last two regular-season games. They travel to Tucson this weekend to face the Arizona Bear Downs. Oregon has won five straight against the Wildcats, including the last two on the road.

Oregon State

  • And now our new segment called “Brandin Cooks and Sean Mannion are awesome and are rewriting record books.” Cooks’ four-yard reception in the first quarter at Arizona State was his 92nd of the season, setting a new Oregon State record. He bested James Rodgers’ 91 in 2009 and Markus Wheaton’s 91 last year. He now has 100 receptions this season, becoming just the fifth Pac-12 player to reach that number. His 1,443 receiving yards trail only Mike Hass (1,532; 2005) in the OSU record books. That number is also eighth all-time in conference history. He needs 19 more receptions to become the all-time receptions leader in Pac-12 history. If we had a web show I’d totally ask Brandin Cooks to come on because he’s such a baller. Oh wait… (Insert Statisfaction awesomeness.)
     
  • With 320 yards passing at ASU last week, Sean Mannion has 3,860 this season and trails only Derek Anderson’s 4,058 from 2003 in OSU history. That’s also the eighth-best mark in the Pac-12. ASU’s Andrew Walter is in seventh place with 3,877 (2002). Mannion’s two passing touchdowns give him 33 on the year to extend his OSU record and ties him for eighth in Pac-12 history. Mannion and Cooks will look to continue to do some rewriting when the Beavers face Washington this week.

Stanford

  • The heartbreaking 20-17 loss for Stanford snapped a program-best four-game winning streak over USC. Each of Stanford’s last three Pac-12 losses has come on the road to an unranked opponent. The Cardinal lost despite its defense holding USC to 23 rushing yards on 27 carries for a 0.9 average per carry. The Trojans rushed for 24 yards in the first quarter and -1 yard from the second quarter on.
     
  • Good news for the Cardinal as its returns home to face its rivals from Berkeley in the 116th edition of the Big Game. This is the third straight season that Stanford has faced Cal after a loss. The Cardinal has not lost consecutive games since midway through the 2009 season. Stanford is 5-0 following a loss under head coach David Shaw. Stanford’s active 14-game home winning streak is the second-longest in the nation behind South Carolina (15). Stanford is looking to win its fourth consecutive Big Game. Stanford fans like this guy will be hurting if the Bears come to The Farm and leave with a win.

UCLA

  • Freshman linebacker/running back Myles Jack scored four rushing touchdowns against Washington last week, the most in a game for a Bruin freshman, eclipsing the three by Wendell Tyler (1972) and DeShaun Foster (1998). It is the first time since 2004 (Maurice Drew against Washington) that a Bruin has rushed for four touchdowns in one game. Jack finished the game with 12 carries and 60 yards rushing to go with five tackles and one pass breakup. Each of the Bruins’ first five touchdowns was by defensive players (Jack 4, Marsh 1). The touchdown reception for senior defensive end Cassius Marsh was his first career catch and score.
     
  • UCLA…ASU…Pac-12 South…Who wants it??? The Bruins and Sun Devils meet in Pasadena with the first place in the South on the line. UCLA has won the last two meetings by a total of three points. Both teams will want to make a statement early and get off to a fast start. UCLA is 9-0 at home in the Mora era when scoring first. The Bruins are 15-0 under Mora when leading at the half. A big win in this showdown will have Bruins fans 8-clapping all over the world.

USC

  • The win over then-No. 4 Stanford was USC's first over a ranked opponent since winning at No. 4 Oregon 38-35 on Nov. 19, 2011. The Trojans and their fans were starving for a huge win and they got it last week. Check this out: In his final season at USC in 2009, Pete Carroll’s squad won three games versus ranked opponents. The win over Stanford was just the third for USC since Carroll has been gone. This has the fans cheering and the legend Rick Neuheisel singing for Coach Orgeron.
     
  • USC travels to Boulder with an all-time record of 7-0 vs. Colorado. A late November night game at Folsom Field could mean some cold weather. According to the USC sports information department, the Trojans are 9-8-1 in cold-weather games. USC has a losing record in games played in the rain over the years (21-23-2) and hasn't played a game in the snow since 1957, when it lost at Notre Dame.

Utah

Washington

  • The Huskies lost a shootout 41-31 at UCLA last week, but true freshman Damore’ea Stringfellow had a breakout game with eight catches, 147 yards and a touchdown.
     
  • UW heads to Corvallis and Bishop Sankey enters the week as the nation’s No. 4 rusher with 139.6 yards per game. Sankey, one of only four Huskies to surpass 1,000 yards in more than one season, also ranks No. 6 in the nation in rushing touchdowns, with 14. His 32 career rushing TDs are third in UW history, just three shy of Napoleon Kaufman’s record
     
  • Washington holds a 59-34-4 record in the all-time series against Oregon State, having won 17 of the last 25 meetings and 27 of the last 36 dating back to 1975. A win in Corvallis this weekend will have dogs everywhere dancing and barking for Sark.

Washington State

  • Huge win for the Cougs last week in Tucson. WSU has recorded five wins for the first time since 2007. WSU now has three conference wins for the first time since 2007. Connor Halliday is spreading the ball around as the WSU offense had 10-plus receivers record a catch for the eighth straight game. The team also has had 10-plus receivers catch a pass in nine games this season. Sharing is caring.
     
  • Washington State will recognize its 19 seniors who will be playing their final game at Martin Stadium as the Cougars look to become bowl-eligible and go to a bowl game for the first time since winning the 2003 Holiday Bowl. One more win and the Cougs are bowling like Big Ern McCracken.

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

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