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Late Night with Pac-10: Week 10 Preview

November 5, 2010  |  By Jeff Popelka

In this episode of BCS Football Superheros, Captain Obvious comes to the stunning conclusion that Oregon is pretty good. Number one team in the nation, it turns out.

After a convincing win over USC at the Coliseum, Oregon saw a one-spot rise to the number one spot in the BCS rankings.

The formula for Oregon is pretty simple: Win out and go to the national championship game.

LNwtP-10 went 2-3 last week, bringing the season tally to 25-21 against the spread.

Saturday games:

Washington at Oregon (-35) - Oregon is absolutely dominant, as evidenced by the way that they steamrolled USC last week. This line has shot up after the news came out that Jake Locker wouldn’t play for the Huskies, but ultimately, nothing has really changed. The Ducks will roll at home, and if you feel the urge to play this game, you have no choice but the lay the 35.

California at Washington State (+14) - Wazzu was thumped last week by the extremely unpredictable Sun Devils, and their opponent Cal is reeling from the news that quarterback Kevin Riley is done for the season. These factors would seem to offset in the opinion of Vegas, as this is one of the smallest lines that Washington State has seen all season. Riley has been fairly productive this season, but the Cal offense really only gets going if their running game is working. The one thing we can be sure of this week is that Cal will run the ball to take the pressure off of Brock Mansion. Given that, take Cal and give the 14.

Oregon State at UCLA (+5) - The predictions are starting to look a little chalky. I love Oregon State at the moment and am really down on UCLA after watching their games the last couple of weeks. Ryan Katz has really been coming on for the Beavers, and even on the road you should roll with OSU and give the 5.

Arizona at Stanford (-9.5) - Andrew Luck is great, and Stanford are rolling after their extremely impressive 41-0 win last week over Washington. What’s been overshadowed this season is how good their running game has been (12th in the nation). Arizona, on the other hand, struggled behind backup quarterback Matt Scott last week against a very average UCLA team. Still, with Nick Foles back under center for the Cats and with a defense as stout as theirs, this is a pretty big number. In what I anticipate to be the best game of the whole weekend, Stanford wins, but doesn’t cover the 9.5. Roll with Arizona.

Arizona State at USC (-6) - ASU is a ridiculously difficult team to pin down. In consecutive weeks in conference play, they’ve lost by 33 and won by 42. They boast the 16th best pass offense, but have really struggled to run the ball. For their part, USC was really outclassed last week but the offense is still excellent, and at home, they will cover the six.

Posted November 5, 2010 12:00 PM