All sorts of Pac-10 action going on around the West Coast today, with a bevy of ranked teams in pivotal games this afternoon. The Oregon Ducks, No. 2 in the BCS rankings, travel to the Coliseum to take on USC in a primetime, nationally televised matchup tonight on ESPN. The game serves as, essentially, a bowl game, for the Trojans, who are ineligible for the postseason due to NCAA sanctions. Last year, the Ducks knocked off the USC trojans at Autzen Stadium, usurping the Pac-10 throne and letting the world know they had truly arrive.
The experts seem to think the Ducks are vulnerable, though they've shown no signs of slowing down this year. On gameday this morning, the picks were split. Will Farrel, the guest picker this week, took his Trojans in a shocking move (note: note really). Lee Corso, who continues to have a borderline creepy love affair going on with the Oregon Duck, put the Duck head on and pranced around on stage. Phil Steele also picked the Trojans to pull off the upset tonight. ESPN's Ted Miller took the Ducks by 11 and all five CBS college football pundits chose Oregon, as well.
Steele appears to love the upsets, also picking Washington to knock off Stanford tonight in Seattle. Miller disagreed with Steele, again, choosing Stanford to win by nine, covering the spread. All five Yahoo pickers, and 96 percent of the fans, chose Stanford. The CBS pundits fell in line, with all five picking the Cardinal. SB Nation blogger John Berkowitz, from UW Dawg Pound, picked the Huskies to pull the upset, 33-31.
In the other game with local ties, Ted Miller chose the Arizona State Sun Devils over the Washington State Cougarsby 11. Since neither team is in the top-25, and the game doesn't hold much national interest, predictions were hard to come by.
We'll see if USC can knock off the Ducks tonight at 5 p.m. Stanford and Washington take the field this afternoon at 4 p.m., as do Arizona State and Washington State.