Roundup: Changes on WSU football staff
Washington State coach Mike Leach fired his special teams coordinator Eric Russell, who was also an assistant head coach. This move comes on the heels of Wazzu giving up two kickoff returns for touchdowns and missing a 19-yard field goal that would have put the Cougars up 62-60 late in the fourth quarter against Cal (ESPN).
The Pac-12 announced that Colorado football coach Mike MacIntyre has been fined $10,000 and reprimanded for chasing down the officiating crew as it left the field following the Buffs’ 36-31 loss to Oregon State.
Bob Young of the Arizona Republic poses this question – has Mike Bercovici done enough to keep the starting quarterback job? Taylor Kelly is a great QB no doubt, but it’s tough to ignore 998 passing yards, eight touchdowns and two interceptions in two starts.
As good as the Cardinal’s defense has been, David Lombardi writes that it hasn’t been enough to overcome Stanford’s struggling offense. The Cardinal averaged just 3.0 yards per play and 1.5 yards per rush against the Fighting Irish, lows of the Jim Harbaugh-David Shaw era. Also, he’s at it again: Richard Sherman said Redskins wide receiver Pierre Garçon “doesn’t matter in this league” after Garçon pulled on Sherman’s dreads during a play in the Seahawks-Redskins Monday nighter.
Let’s give some love to Utah freshman right guard Salesi Uhatafe for doing work in his first career start. He didn’t give up a sack and was a key cog in an O-line that allowed the Utes to rush for 242 yards against the Bruins.
Mike Vernon of the San Francisco Chronicle looks at some eye-popping stats from Cal’s 60-59 win over Washington State. Still hard to believe some of these numbers occurred in real life and not a game of "NFL Blitz".
And hey, while we’re on the numbers tip, let’s re-visit the key stats from Oregon State’s victory over Colorado. Congrats to Sean Mannion for completing the 1,000th pass of his career; one of just 24 NCAA quarterbacks to ever do so.
Beating Oregon and earning a No. 10 next to your name is cool and all, but Arizona is solely focused on USC, says Rich Rodriguez, as reported by Daniel Berk.
USC is still feeling the sting of the loss to Arizona State, writes Scott Wolf. A win over the other Arizona school would be a nice remedy.
With all the football madness going on lately, the Pac-12 Post link roundup has neglected to mention that UCLA signed men’s basketball coach Steve Alford to a contract extension, the school announced Friday. It’s a one-year extension through the 2020-21 season.
In other basketball news that was missed, Oregon center Michael Chandler has a knee injury. He is expected to be the team’s starter at the “5,” but the good news is that he is expected to be back on the court well before the regular season starts.
Christian Caple has us covered with Chris Petersen’s quotes from his Monday press conference.