How The West Was Won: Stacking Up The Pac-12 Expats In Week 11

The week that felt like a never-ending feedback loop of hellish proportions did, in fact, give way to the weekend.

As I sit here writing this newsletter a day later than usual, I’m looking west from the bucolic coffee shop I’m posted outside of in Manhattan Beach at a subdued Pacific Ocean, reminding yours truly that the world goes beyond whatever hell is being cooked up on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Now more than ever, we can all use a bit of amateur football to rub some salve on our gaping wounds, with a stubby-fingered vulgarian facing down the barrel of damn near three dozen felonies about to waddle his way into the West Wing (gulp).

Luckily for us, we have such bangers as *checks notes* Cal vs. Wake Forest, UCLA vs. Iowa and San Diego State vs. New Mexico to keep our minds off the nation’s looming nightmare on Friday night.

From there, we have a full slate of slapdash football on Saturday, with all the prerequisite missed tackles and jackassery that we’ve come to love about this imperfect sport we call our own.

Without further ado, lets get it on!

Last Week: 5-4 Straight-up/4-5 ATS

Season: 59-24 Straight-up/45-36 ATS

Whatever Indian burial ground Justin Wilcox desecrated somewhere along the way has really screwed over the head coach of the East Bay’s loveable losers in 2024.

That’s because the Golden Bears enter Friday’s ACC tilt with their natural rivals from Winston-Salem (that’s in North Carolina for my Cal readers) having lost four games by a combined margin of nine points.

The widest margin of defeat in that span was Cal’s 14-9 loss to the shit-eating Florida State Seminoles, with the Bears prying defeat from victories grasp in one-point faceplants against the likes of No. 8 Miami (39-38) and NC State (24-23).

Throw in a two-point road loss to 22nd ranked Pitt (17-15) and you have the full scope of Wilcox’s plight, though we foresee a bit of a reprieve coming this weekend, as Wake has run up the score against the little sisters of the poor known as Stanford (lol) and UConn in recent weeks.

Come Saturday afternoon, Wake’s luck runs out and Wilcox’s bad tidings turn around, as Cal gets out of the six-foot deep grave they dug for themselves against the unlovable losers from Tallahassee on Sept. 21.

In another Friday night tilt that’s sure to be a 60-minute clanger of clusterfuck proportions, the mighty Bruins of UCLA roar into a homefield road game against Iowa at the Rose Bowl looking to earn a third consecutive victory.

Given UCLA’s plucky performance against Rutgers (a 35-32 win) and Nebraska (a 27-20 win) on the road, it might be time to stop posting the same BoJack meme about our dearly apathetic Osos.

Dear reader, that’s not how this show works, though, as I’m never going to pass up an opportunity to share the best BoJack reference out there. Also, UCLA’s going to get their collective bells rung by Kirk Ferentz of all people, which is enough of a reason to share the meme again in my opinion.

Can we get a collective “hell no” in the group chat for San Diego State first-year head coach Sean Lewis?

The former WAC wunderkind-turned Coach Prime scapegoat has soiled the sheets in consecutive weeks, with SDSU collapsing down the stretch like a 7/11 burrito against Washington State in a 29-26 home loss before getting their asses kicked by Ashton Jeanty and the Boise State Broncos.

While there’s certainly no shame in getting deflowered by our nation’s eminent backfield munitions expert, we can say that giving up 56 points to Boise State on the Smurf Turf was less than ideal for any self-respecting football program.

This week, Lewis and company come off a bye week to welcome the hell that is a Bronco Mendenhall coached offense, which should befuddle the already overwhelmed Aztecs for roughly three quarters of football.

That’s when we project UNM to run into a Nob Hill-sized wall, however, with SDSU emerging with a one-score victory on Friday night against their soon-to-be former conference foes from the Duke City.

How’s Year One of the Trent Bray era in Corvallis going, you may ask? Well, the newsletter’s favorite Beaver-themed college program has lost three straight to such football luminaries as Cal (lol), UNLV (acceptable) and Nevada (lol part two).

Now, Oregon State enters the stretch run with a 4-4 record and needing two wins over teams like San José State, Air Force, Washington State and Boise State to reach a bowl game in 2024.

Sadly for Bray and his water-clogging compatriots, Oregon State’s only winnable games in that four-contest stretch run are this week’s clash against the Spartans and next weekend’s date with a god-awful Falcons team.

For now, I’m going with Oregon State to get a much needed victory against the Spartans come Saturday night at Reser Stadium, though any semblance of optimism is fast running dry in Corvallis.

The nation’s leading gridiron confidence man is hitting his stride inside the gilded bandbox known as Folsom Field, with Neon Deion leading CU to a 6-2 record and on a two game win streak entering this week’s road game against 6-3 Texas Tech.

Better yet for Buffs’ fans is the fact that Prime and his staff have secured double-digit wins in successive weeks over the carton of spoiled milk that is the Arizona Wildcats and an upstart Cincinnati team to move to six wins for the year, giving CU faithful hope that 2024 could be the year respect is restored in Boulder.

While it pains me to the utmost degree to pass off pleasantries about Colorado University, I’ll give Prime credit for getting CU back into fighting form after the team fell apart last fall.

Come this weekend’s clash in the cow pasture known as Lubbock, I’ll go with CU to keep the good times rolling, with the Buffs’ pulling off a spread-clearing win over the Red Raiders come Saturday afternoon.

Dan Lanning is an absolute sociopath, but the man knows every intricacy and misnomer in the football rulebook.

Whether it be the football version of Tecumseh Sherman’s use of a 12 man on the field penalty to screw over human thumb Ryan Day and Ohio State or last weekend’s use of an illegal punt formation to draw a penalty on an overmatched Michigan team, Lanning knows his shit.

This week, the elderly Millennial mastermind will use that ungodly power to vanquish a school that shouldn’t exist in the first place.

That’s right, folks, the Maryland Terrapins are a desecration to god and Lanning will wipe their turtle-clad backsides across the turf inside Autzen Stadium come Saturday evening.

This is going to be NSFW level carnage, too, so make sure to delete your cable package so you don’t have access to the Big Ten Network come 4 p.m. Pacific time Saturday, as Oregon’s going to go scorched earth on the turtles this weekend.

Year Two of the Kenny Dillingham era in Tempe shows that the West’s stock of gerbil-shaped 30-year-old dudes that know ball is endless.

That’s because Lanning’s slightly younger protege in the East Valley has turned the lol worthy Sun Devils into a functional football team in two seasons, going from last year’s fun (for anyone that has enough self respect not to root for ASU in the first place) 3-9 faceplant to a 6-2 run that’s looked very respectable all the way down.

This week, ASU gets to play their East Coast diploma mill equivalent in the University of Central Florida — which last appeared in the Valley in the 2019 Fiesta Bowl when Josh Heupel forgot that Joe Burrow existed.

This week, I’m going with ASU to outsmart noted Florida Man Gus Malzahn, earning a seventh win on the year for the spunky Sun Devils.

“Big Game” James has been anything but when it comes to beating anyone with a pulse since arriving in Happy Valley, with James Franklin posting a 3-17 mark against top 10 teams to date.

A week after Franklin soiled his britches in a 20-13 defeat at the hands of No. 4 Ohio State only to wet himself arguing with a bloated mall cop in the Beaver Stadium stands, it seems like things couldn’t get worse for the humbled Nittany Lions.

You’d be wrong, however, as America’s favorite human punching bag arrives in town on Saturday night, with Jedd Ari Fisch and his Washington Huskies squad hitting Happy Valley at 5 p.m. West Coast time.

I’m expecting Fisch to sweat through his visor by the time the third quarter whistle blows, with Washington debasing themselves on a streaming service no one uses in the far flung reaches of the Keystone State.

Can Ashton Jeanty keep it up for another four weeks of regular season football, you might ask yourself.

Well, the newsletter’s Heisman Trophy pick has done all that one could ask this year, with 1,575 rushing yards and 20 touchdowns for the Broncos.

He’s done all this despite running against eight or nine men in the box, allowing Broncos QB Maddux Madsen (yes, that is his actual name. Stupid Millennial parents…) to do things like this through the air.

(Meme courtesy of Spencer Hall and Channel Six. Subscribe right now here.)

Come Saturday night, Madsen and company will have plenty of room to operate, with Jeanty going scorched earth on Nevada’s piss-poor defense, opening up lots of pasture for the rest of the team.

Fresno State was knocked down at home by the fighting pineapples of Hawaii a week ago, allowing the Fighting ‘Bows to score 14 unanswered fourth quarter points to seal a 21-20 victory in the Central Valley.

This week, the Bulldogs hit the road to play a grounded Air Force team that’s 1-7 this season.

My conspiracy theory is that Troy Calhoun’s triple option offense hit the shits when the Joint Chiefs of Staff decided to allow Army & Navy to actually recruit football-sized men again, which forced Air Force to share their ill gotten gains.

TL;DR: The Falcons are entering their sowing era after a decade of unrelenting reaping, which I love as a native of Annapolis, Maryland.

The Holy War is back, baby! While conference realignment has, in large, sucked massive amounts of ass, at least we get intraconference clashes between BYU and Utah again.

This year, we get to watched Utah’s washed offense try to bite, scratch and claw out yards against Jay Hill’s demonic defense at BYU.

The Cougars currently rank 24th nationally in points allowed (19.6) while Utah’s anemic offense ranks 109th in scoring (22.3).

Long story short: BYU will find the most hilarious way ever to go to 9-0 for the year come Saturday night. I guarantee it.

Our Pick: Washington State wins, 45-20

The mighty Cougars of Washington State have “Pac-ed” in their fair share of wins this season, going 7-1 and finally earning a spot in the CFP top 25 after beating Fresno State, Hawaii and San Diego State in succession.

To the winner go the spoils, as the old saying reads, so Jake Dickert’s bunch gets a well-timed reprieve by playing future Pac-12 rival Utah State on Saturday evening in what should be a laugher along the Palouse.

Utah State doesn’t have a head coach past the end of the season after disgraced former sideline warrior Blake Anderson was canned for shadowy reasons, leaving interim coach Nate Dreiling to finish the job.

Sadly for the Aggies, that job includes getting their asses hatched by Washington State’s lumbering oaf of a quarterback, with our nation’s leading Large Lad under center, John Mateer, running and gunning his way to a one-sided win in Saturday’s West Coast nightcap inside the venue formerly known as Martin Stadium.