Roundup: Apple Cup is for all the Northern marbles

Heading into the Apple Cup, David Lombardi thinks that Washington is in a good position to reach the College Football Playoff (provided it wins against Washington State and claims the Pac-12 title, of course).

Chris Low of ESPN takes a deep look into the mind of Washington State head coach Mike Leach. This is a fascinating piece. The Apple Cup is gonna be a big one.

Colorado might not consider Utah a big rival, but Nick Kosmider of The Denver Post points out that previous Colorado-Utah matchups may indicate that a rivalry is brewing.

The Bruins might be 4-7, but Kyle Bonagura explains that beating Cal would give UCLA a shot of going to a bowl game. UCLA (972) has a higher APR than Cal (960), so the Bruins would be a better bet to make a bowl at 5-7 than Cal. You also gotta root for those 5-6 and high-APR 4-7 teams to lose.

Tom FitzGerald lets us know that Stanford’s regular-season finale against Rice could be Christian McCaffrey’s last game at Stanford. As a third-year collegian, McCaffrey can enter the NFL Draft.

In this The Oregonian/OregonLIve video, Beavers quarterback Marcus McMaryion says Oregon State is due to beat Oregon.

Scott Wolf can’t ruin Christmas for another month (kidding), so he dampens the mood on USC’s seven-game win streak by writing that Ronald Jones’ slow start has kept the Trojans from being an elite team (in all seriousness, he's a great reporter. Nobody had a better blow-by-blow of the Kiffin firing than Wolf).

Kyle Goon writes that Utah wide receiver Cory Butler-Byrd has learned how to temper his anger following his July suspension that could have been a whole lot worse.

Bruce Pascoe has the gamer from Arizona men’s basketball’s 69-61 win over Santa Clara in Las Vegas Thursday night. Former ASU head coach Herb Sendek, now at Santa Clara, had the Broncos within one point with about four and a half minutes to go.

Chantel Jennings lets us know that Ann Danby, a 100-year-old Oregon fan, is preaching for Oregon to have some perspective with its football program. No need to panic after one bad season, yo.

Ahead of the Territorial Cup, Jeff Metcalfe features Arizona State safety Marcus Ball, who is really coming into his own this year as a starter for the Sun Devils.

Rusty Simmons explains how Cal football’s scout team is responsible for the team’s success.