Roundup: Devontae Booker finds a home at Utah
The full weekend slate of Pac-12 football games begins Friday night with No. 24 Utah hosting in-state rival Utah State (7 p.m. MT/6 p.m. PT, ESPN2). For a Utah link, we head to Sports Illustrated, where Thayer Evans and Pete Thamel put together this piece on running back Devontae Booker finding a home at Utah. Hath been a long, winding road to the SLC for the Heisman hopeful.
The game of the week takes place in East Lansing, where No. 7 Oregon travels to take on fifth-ranked Michigan State. USA Today’s Paul Myerberg and Daniel Uthman publish this piece on Oregon football players taking SAT-style tests about their upcoming opponent. Taken every Thursday during the regular season, the tests are meant to determine how well players know their responsibilities and the game plan for the next game.
The dreaded 9 a.m. PT kickoff time returns to Pac-12ville Saturday, when Oregon State heads to Ann Arbor to take on the Fighting Harbaughs (ABC). Danny Moran of The Oregonian writes that Oregon State’s offensive line knows it needs to improve in its game against Michigan. There were too many holding penalties against Weber State in the minds of the Beavers.
Sean Wagner-McGough of CBS Sports details how Jared Goff is turning into the next great NFL quarterback hope despite being 7-18 as a starter and taking every snap out of shotgun. Solid test for the Golden Bears with San Diego State coming to town Saturday (2 p.m., Pac-12 Networks).
How will Josh Rosen fare in his second game at QB? That is just one of five things to watch in the UCLA-UNLV game (7:30 p.m., CBS Sports Network), according to Kyle Bonagura.
The Arizona Republic’s Doug Haller and Sarah Kezele (!!!!) get you ready for Arizona State’s upcoming game with Cal Poly (8 p.m., Pac-12 Networks). Jump to 1:13 to see offensive coordinator Mike Norvell stare into the soul of the person to your left for three and a half seconds.
As Stanford looks to get to .500 against Central Florida Saturday night (7:30 p.m., FOX Sports 1), David Lombardi wonders whether simplifying the offense will improve the Stanford attack.
Percy Allen of the Seattle Times writes about Sacramento State hoping to spoil Washington’s home opener (11 a.m., Pac-12 Networks). The Hornets have beaten a couple of Pac-12 teams in recent years, knocking off Oregon State in 2011 and Colorado in 2012.
Buffzone.com beat writers Brian Howell and Pat Rooney preview Colorado’s upcoming game with UMass (11 a.m. PT/12 p.m. MT, Pac-12 Mountain) in this video link.
Wazzu heads to New Jersey to take on a troubled Rutgers squad that has had to deal with a ton of off-field distractions (12:30 p.m., ESPNU). One guy who figures to be an on-field problem for the Cougs, however, is Rutgers wide receiver Leonte Carroo, who scored on the first play from scrimmage against the Cougars last year in the Scarlet Knights’ 41-38 victory over Washington State in Seattle. Jacob Thorpe has more.
Could be a tricky one for No. 22 Arizona as it takes on Nevada in Reno (4 p.m., CBS Sports Network), and one reason why it could be tough is because of Nevada quarterback Tyler Stewart, who completed 65 percent of his passes in his first game as a full-time starter last week in a 31-17 win over UC Davis. The Arizona Daily Star’s Zack Rosenblatt has a nice feature on the kid who is next in line after Cody Fajardo and Colin Kaepernick in the Biggest Little City in the World (Czech out the Harrah’s buffet, Arizona fans; it has anything you could ever want to eat and then some).
‘Twill be another weekend on the Pac-12 Networks for No. 8 USC, which welcomes its second-straight Sun Belt school in Idaho to town (5 p.m.). Gary Klein of the Los Angeles Times spotlights USC wide receiver Jalen Greene, a former quarterback who originally wanted to play that position for the Trojans. It sounds like there might still be a chance he returns to quarterback in 2016.