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Pac-12 Picks, Week 5: Did you know Matt Barkley passed for 53 yards for USC last week?

Plus, team store jinxes, a creepy Petersen face, Australian punters, and more!

By Brent Armstrong

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Jeff Gross

With Mississippi State's upset of LSU, the previously unranked Bulldogs leapfrogged Stanford, USC, and ASU in the AP poll. Unless the selection committee's poll will be drastically different from the AP poll, I'm afraid that by the end of the season there will be TWO SEC West teams in the playoffs. Out of Alabama, Auburn, Texas A&M, Ole Miss, LSU, and Mississippi State, I'm pretty sure two of those teams get in. What if the four playoff teams are Alabama, Texas A&M, ECU, and BYU? Actually, that would be somewhat fun. But I remain cynical of the committee getting it right.

Game Picks

Last week: 5-1-0
Season: 20-14-0
Home team in CAPS.

Thursday, September 25th, 7:00 PM PDT
#15 ARIZONA STATE (+4.5) over #11 University of California, Los Angeles

Saturday, September 27th, 1:00 PM PDT
Colorado (+13.5) over CALIFORNIA

  • This is a little late, but Colorado has started using Cartman from South Park to introduce Ralphie:

    For a lot of hype, this was pretty anticlimactic.

  • Cal fans can blame their official fan store, and not poor defending, for their heartbreaking loss against Arizona. The Cal Bears Shop sent out an email before time expired in the game, congratulating the Bears on a victory and offering 25% off hats. This can be the only explanation for their loss, since it's not like they practice defending "Hail Marys". Wait, they do? Oh. Maybe don't mention that, Coach Dykes.

1:15 PM PDT
WASHINGTON (+7.5) over #16 Stanford

  • Earlier this week, Chris Petersen played dodgeball with Washington student athletes. He also tried to make the creepiest face possible.

  • Here's a slow motion video of former Stanford QB Andrew Luck doing weird things with his mouth.

5:00 PM PDT
UTAH (-12.5) over Washington State

  • I knew Utah had a good punter in Tom Hackett, but I didn't know it's because he's from Australia (where everyone knows how to kick an Australian Rules football). Watch how long the ball stays in the air and how soft it lands. Why doesn't every school recruit an Australian punter?

  • Poor Cougs. Can we just fire all of the Pac-12 refs? Would anyone in the conference oppose this?

7:30 PM PDT
#18 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA (-9) over Oregon State

  • In case you were still uncertain if Lane Kiffin was a horrible coach...

  • Last Saturday against San Diego State, Sean Mannion threw for 275 yards in his quest to become the conference's all-time leading passer. Not to be outdone, the current record holder Matt Barkley gained 53 passing yards, due to a convenient bookkeeping error. In case you were wondering, Mannion now needs 988 more yards to break the record.

Arizona (Idle)

  • Remember when USC Athletics tweeted this as a prank? Because they would never ever wear a helmet like this?

    It turned out that every school in the conference had a helmet like this displayed at Pac-12 media days. But against Cal last Saturday, the Wildcats actually wore this helmet! Hideous.

#2 Oregon (Idle)

Song of the Week

This is just a really good song.

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