Pac Ten Alley

Due to a little bit of vacation we have a little catching up to do in Pac Ten Alley. One of the nice things about going on vacation this time of year is that after spring practice the football news really starts to slow down as the coaches start evaluating talent for next years class. Every weekend there will be combines and camps going on up and down the coast. The crew at Dawgman will be keeping an eyes on everything that is going on.

One interesting development was the story that Bellevue's David DeCastro has decided to commit early to Stanford. This was pretty much a surprise for everyone including Jim Harbaugh who is officially the conferences new Rick Neuheisel. In other words he is the guy all the other coaches hate. Harbaugh is turning things around at the Farm, and he is getting through to a lot of kids early this year. Look for Stanford to pull in a nice national crop of recruits for 2008. DeCastro reportedly made a comment that slaps both Washington schools. He reportedly said he didn't want to waste all the effort he put into getting good grades by going to a school like WSU, or UW.

The Husky women's crew somehow was invited to the NCAA championships despite having a very mediocre year which was the varsity boat finish 6th at last weeks Pac Ten Regatta. They are going to need a strong finish in that event to keep their coach.

Pac Ten Alley

Marc Tyler continues on the road to regain full speed this Fall for USC.

All-American running back Marc Tyler of Westlake Village Oaks Christian passed an important milestone Monday when he ran at full speed for the first time since breaking his left leg during a playoff game last November, and his future coach, USC's Pete Carroll, was on hand to watch.Tyler, who had a stainless steel rod surgically implanted in his leg, ran some pass patterns with Oaks Christian players during a 15-minute spring football practice workout at Oaks Christian in which Carroll dropped by to observe.

Cal fan's await the college football magazine predictions which help fill the void now that Spring ball is over.

Spring ball is a wrap, and the next big college football event is the arrival of the preseason magazines. You'll just have to wait for some of them, but I can give you a sneak peek at selected rankings for Lindy's Football Annuals. As senior editor at Lindy's, I'm mostly to blame for all the ratings - from the team rankings, to player rankings to position rankings. Sure, it's a collaborative effort, with input from every corner of the country (and all the wonderful, small college towns in between), but I do have a very presidential-like veto power. I had to use that to make a tweak to Lindy's Pac-10 rankings. Parts of the Pac-10 are easy to pick. USC is first (brilliant!). Stanford is last. Cal, on the basis of a great offense and great coaching, is second. UCLA, with 10 starters returning from a defense that smothered USC last season, is third.

Oregon State is starting to tune up and get ready to defend it's national championship in baseball.

The Beavers play Arizona State this weekend, one of the most powerful offensive teams in the conference. I'll get some stats up to back this hypothesis, but the Sun Devils are good. The Beavs and Devils played once earlier in the year during the Coca-Cola Classic. Oregon State won 12-4. We'll also take a look back at the stats from that game as well.

OSU, and Oregon afraid to play Portland State?

If you didn't read John Canzano's laughable column on Sunday, its worth a chuckle. In this article, Canzano tries to make a point that Oregon and Oregon State will be viewed as "afraid" until they step up and play Portland State every year. He even encourages the state legislature to require it. Canzano, who is basically Portland's village idiot, shows what a clueless moron he is once again. In case you don't remember the last two times we played Portland State, the combined scores of those games were 96-17. I don't give a shit if they have Jerry Glanville. The are a 1-AA also ran, plain and simple. Oregon doesn't play PSU on a regular basis because they have nothing to gain by doing so. Scheduling 1-AA games only fucks up good bowl chances, as seen in 2005. We only play the Vikings when we are in a crunch, and there is no reason to play them more often than that.

Setting standards for Dorrell at UCLA.

Before heading into Dorrell’s 4th season last spring we laid down our marker last year on what we expected from the Bruin head football coach: 9 wins and a victory over Southern Cal. Dorrell came short on getting his 9 wins and eeked out an expected home win (from the pov of BN) over a Trojan squad with vanilla offense. It's time for us to lay down our marker again. As we head into Dorrell’s 5th season, I think there is a general consensus on what we expect from the head coach who has year after year fallen short of the expectations he set for himself when he was hired in Westwood.

WSU names it's captains and picks up a couple of recruits.

In a move lacking little suspense, the Cougars named their four captains for the 2007 season. Senior QB Alex Brink, senior WR Michael Bumpus, senior safety Husain Abdullah and junior linebacker Greg Trent all won out in the vote by the team. Brink is the only repeat captain from last year's group, which also consisted of seniors Scott Davis, Mkristo Bruce and Jason Hill. Meanwhile, WSU actually signed a couple of players yesterday who will be eligible to play this fall as late additions to the 2007 recruiting class. And it appears the Texas pipeline has paid off again, as both players hail from Blinn Community College in Brenham, TX..

A list of former Arizona asst coaches and where they are now. My guess would that they would be in a far, better place.

Here's a list of former UA assistant football coaches who are active in coaching in college or the NFL. We think we got them all, but let us know if we missed any. There are some interesting names on the list, and plenty of folks who are in key roles both in college and in the professional ranks.

For those who haven’t heard: Stanford might have found its quarterback of the future.
He’s Jason Forcier, a former Mater Dei/St. Augustine’s standout who is transferring to Stanford from Michigan. Jim Harbaugh also let it slip that Michigan is just so so academically when it comes to recruiting football players. A kid who goes to Stanford is more likely to get a good job after graduating, while at Michigan the same kid is quickly forgotten.

I happen to think Harbaugh is a genius, I really do. Stanford receives absolutely no coverage in the Bay Area from the newspapers, even San Jose gets quite a bit more for football. He keeps saying outrageous things so he can get some print, and by getting that print draw more of the Bay area writers back into the fold. Just ask Jim Moore, writers are suckers for a controversial byline.

ASU has had plenty of scandals over the years, and the house of Heat takes a look back this week at some of the most memorable.

No, not the halftime bar upstairs from Julio's Too. You're thinking of Fumbles. Not the skeezy local bar on Tybee Island, either. Today we continue our countdown of ten ASU scandals not quite as bad as the Loren Wade/Brandon Faulkner situation.