As far as life in the wild goes, I think I’d rather be a Grizzly than a Duck. Seems that some people think similarly about the situation in college football. After being released from the Oregon ducks in May, quarterback Justin Roper has announced that he’ll be a Montana Grizzly next season.

Image: Newscom

It isn’t that Roper isn’t good, according to the Ducks coaching staff. They just have someone better - Jeremiah Masoli. Montana gives him the chance to explore his NFL potential, according to what he told reporters earlier today.

Roper started during three games last year before a knee injury forced him to spend the next four games on the bend . During those three games, plus three others near the end of the season where he played (but didn’t start), Roper completed 48 out of 91 passes. He threw three touchdown passes and ran the ball in himself once.

Montana can have Roper for two years, since he redshirted in 2006. Will he succeed with this program? Maybe. If he does, I hope people will actually take notice. They may not be Florida or USC, but great quarterbacks have come from weirder places.

I can’t watch every game, and there are tons not on TV every week. So, instead of blogging about every game, I’ll link you to the people who are talking about it (by conference). If I missed your link, leave a comment!

Oregon 35, Stanford 28

• Ducks: Oregon-Stanford report card at Statesmanjournal.com
• Football: Rollercoaster at The Stanford Daily

Arizona 59, Washington State 28

• WSU Breaks Scoring Slump Against Arizona at Washington State Football News
• Cougars Downed By Arizona, 59-28 at KNDU Sports

Oregon State 34, UCLA 6

• Oregon State clobbers UCLA at KVAL Sports
• Oregon State beats UCLA 34-6 at Sport Snipe
• Oregon State roars past UCLA, 34-6 at Bruinville

Arizona State 39, Washington 19

• Huskies Fall to Sun Devils, 39-19 at Washington Football

#7 USC 17, #21 California 3

• Inside The Numbers: USC at California Golden Blogs
• Winning California-Style at Jimokes of USC Football
• California-USC Report Card at Bears Necessity

Other conferences: ACC, Big 12, Big East, Big Ten, Conference USA, Independents, Mid-American, Mountain West, Pac-10, SEC, Sun Belt, WAC

(check back soon if the link isn’t live yet)

I can’t watch every game, and there are tons not on TV every week. So, instead of blogging about every game, I’ll link you to the people who are talking about it (by conference). If I missed your link, leave a comment!

California 26, #24 Oregon 16

• Grades and Analysis: California at Oregon Ducks Football
• Cal vs. Oregon - Post Game Thoughts at California Golden Blogs

Stanford 58, Washington State 0

• Stanford Thrashes Washington State at Stanford Cardinal News

#5 USC 56, Washington 0

• USC-Washington Report Card at Inside USC with Scott Wolf
• Five observations: USC-Washington at OC Register’s USC Blog
• Washington Beatdown at Jimokes of USC Football

Oregon State 27, Arizona State 25

• Oregon State holds off Arizona State 27-25 at Original Signal
• Oregon State holds on in nail biter at KVAL Sports

Other conferences: ACC, Big 12, Big East, Big Ten, Conference USA, Independents, Mid-American, Mountain West, Pac-10, SEC, Sun Belt, WAC

(check back soon if the link isn’t live yet)

I can’t watch every game, and there are tons not on TV every week. So, instead of blogging about every game, I’ll link you to the people who are talking about it (by conference). If I missed your link, leave a comment!

California 41, UCLA 20

• UCLA Recap at California Golden Bears Football Blog
• Another Loss for UCLA Football at The Good Life in Virginia

Notre Dame 33, Washington 7

• Bye-bye Ty, Washington to replace Willingham after season at More with Gore
• Notre Dame Trounces Hapless Huskys at Casey’s Clipboard & Wally’s World

Oregon 54, Arizona State 20

• Oregon’s Quick Start Too Much for Sun Devils at Arizona State Football News

#5 USC 17, Arizona 10

• College Football Bullets at The Natural Blog of x
• College Football Thoughts about 10.25.08- Is Southern Cal slowly coming back into reality? at Fooball on the Brain

Other conferences: ACC, Big 12, Big East, Big Ten, Conference USA, Independents, Mid-American, Mountain West, Pac-10, SEC, Sun Belt, WAC

(check back soon if the link isn’t live yet)

I can’t watch every game, and there are tons not on TV every week. So, instead of blogging about every game, I’ll link you to the people who are talking about it (by conference). If I missed your link, leave a comment!

Arizona against Stanford

• Stanford Edges Arizona 24-23 In Homecoming Thriller at Stanford Cardinal News
• Second guessing, chapter I at AZStarNet.com

Arizona State against #8 USC

• Ugly Sanchez: USC 28, ASU 0 at No Joshin’
• Arizona State University 0 USC 28 at A Muchness of Me
• USC shuts down Arizona State 28-0 despite sloppy play at South Bay Chat

Oregon against UCLA

• UCLA loses a close one in Oregon at UCLA Blog
• Oregon’s Late Start Pushes the Ducks Past Bruins at UCLA Bruins News
• Oregon Fans Are Rick Neuheisel Haters at Larry Brown Sports

Oregon State against Washington State

• Game Recap: Oregon State 66, Washington State 13 at Building the Dam
• Beavers Break Down Cougars On Record-Setting Day at Oregon State University Headline News

Did not play this week:

• California
• Washington

Other conferences: ACC, Big 12, Big East, Big Ten, Conference USA, Independents, Mid-American, Mountain West, Pac-10, SEC, Sun Belt, WAC

Are you gearing up to the first game of the season? Most teams have announced who they’re playing, when, and where…so here’s a little list of the Pac-10 games taking place during Week One - I’ll give you another update closer to that time!

Pac-10 Games during Week One - Thursday, August 28 - Monday, September 1 (times are all EST)

Arizona hosting Idaho: Saturday at 9:00 PM
Arizona State hosting Northern Arizona: Saturday at 10:00 PM
California hosting Michigan State: Saturday 8:00 PM
Oregon hosting Washington: Saturday, time TBA
Oregon State @ Stanford: Thursday at 9:00 PM
UCLA hosting Tennessee: Monday at 8:00 PM
USC @ Virginia: Saturday at 3:30 PM
Washington State hosting Oklahoma State: Saturday, time TBA

Terrelle Pryor, the number one college football recruit for 2008, has finally made a decision.

Well, almost.

Pryor, along with a few other top recruits, didn’t choose a school on National Signing Day, and his moves have been watched closely every since. Last word was that he was deciding between Oregon, Penn State, Michigan, and Ohio State. Rivals is reporting that he’s since said it was down to two of those schools. Which two? He’s keeping his lips zipped, but we all pretty much know that Penn State is out of the running.

Why? Because Pryor isn’t a dumbass… Because Pryor has mentioned in the past that he didn’t really like the area. Top that off with an unstable coaching future, a horrible current quarterback coach, and a missed official visit, and you can guess that he’s not even considering PSU anymore, which is too bad. It’s probably for his best, though, since we all saw what happened to Anthony Morelli, who was also a top recruiting coming into the NCAA system.

So it’s down to Oregon, Ohio State, and Michigan. Let’s assume that Oregon is out of the running as well. He’s never even been there.

While, I agree with the Rivals report that he’s likely going to choose Ohio State, I strongly believe that purely from a football standpoint, he’d have a better chance at Michigan. With Ryan Mallet gone, there’s no one left to step up into Chad Henne’s spot (at least, no one worth mentioning at this point), so Pryor could very well see lots of playing time his freshman year.

Of course, that might lead to a Jimmy Clausen scenerio…

In any case, Pryor has promised to make the announcement by the end of the week. He’s been busy with basketball, and thought he might be playing a game in State College last weekend, so didn’t want to make any anti-PSU (or pro-PSU) confirmation before that.

Pryor’s a smart kid with a lot of athletic potential. I am sick of hearing about him though. I respect his decision to wait until he was sure, but it’s time to decide. Put on your hate, Pryor!

Picture from WikiCommons.

Putting up the Christmas Tree of death yesterday kept me from blogging much, but I did get to watch a few key games - namely LSU and Tennessee. What an exciting week to end the college football season! Here’s a little weekend wrap-up:

#6 Virginia Tech took the ACC championship with a 30 - 16 win over #11 Boston College. Hey, does anyone remember when BC was  contending for the national championship? BC Quarterback Matt Ryan had a good week, thought, as he was named to the coaches’ team. Too bad the two fourth-quarter interceptions he threw in this game lost BC the chance to play in the Orange Bowl.

#7 LSU, with head coach Les Miles at the helm, dominated #14 Tennessee in the SEC championship game. OK, maybe “dominated” is a strong word - but heir 21 - 14 win shoots them to bowl status for sure, and many are arguing that they should be playing in the national championship game.

It was a close one, but #17 Oregon lost to Oregon State 38 - 31 in two overtimes. Ouch, that hurts.

#8 USC overcame the media frenzy surrounding their game and won 24 - 7 against UCLA. Did anyone really doubt they would win?

In a huge upset, #2 West Virginia become like, the millionth #2 casualty  this year falling to…Pittsburgh…um….yeah, good work guys…Final score against this 5-7 team was 9 - 13. But, that loss was important to another team - Ohio State. Because the #1 and #2 team lost (no one thought in a million years that would happen against Pittsburgh), OSU will be playing in the National Championship Game.

Oh yeah, you didn’t hear? #1 Missouri lost too. But at least their loss wasn’t embarrassing - it was 38 - 17 against #9 Oklahoma.

#13 Arizona State won against Arizona, 20 - 17.  No big surprise here, but that should means that Arizona State ends in the top 12 and can be considered for a bowl as an at-large team.

Underdog of the year, #12 Hawaii, went undefeated with their win last night against Washington. And STILL everyone is saying that they’re not that great. STFU. I hope Hawaii gets paired in a Bowl Game against someone super tough…and wins.

Is this really the “year of the duck”? Oregon was ranked #2 going into tonight’s game, but now, at halftime, the Ducks are losing to #8 ranked Arizona. The Wildcats have a lot of fans tonight - basically any team ranked 3-7 is routing for Oregon to lose to their rank will increase, giving some teams bowl chances - maybe even National Championship chances.

Currently, Oregon is down by 17 points. The score going into halftime is 31-17 in Arizona’s favor.

And unfortunately, that is mostly do to an early injury to Oregon’s star play, Dennis Dixon. Looks like another Heisman hopeful bites the dust. Poor guy…to be so damn close and then get injured. Sigh.

When asked about Dixon’s injury going into the locker room, the coach said, “They tell me he’s done for the night. I don’t know what that means.”

It means that he’s not going to play anymore this week, you idiot.

Ok, now I’m just being snarky. But I’m in a bad mood. I wanted the Ducks to win.  Can they pull this game from the fire and win without Dixon? Doubtful. But we shall see.