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Midseason Grades - Pac-12 Edition

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Here are grades for the Pac-12 Conference teams at the midway point of the NCAA football season.

North Division

Washington (5-2 overall, 3-1 Pac-12)

Summary: If the Huskies don't make the playoff (they won't), Washington's season will go down as a disappointment.

This is Chris Petersen's fifth year in the Pacific Northwest. He has a veteran squad that expected to return to the final four.

An early-season loss to Auburn is forgivable - we expected the Tigers to be better. Run the Pac-12 table, and the Huskies would still be in. Then they fell to Oregon on the road. Gulp.

Things should be more nuanced than this! Washington is still really, really good. So is Oregon. It’s not easy to win at Autzen, and the game went to overtime. Washington should still have a shot. Alas, the committee has likely seen enough - and I've seen enough of quarterback Jake Browning to know he's good but not great.

Browning isn't a guy who can elevate the play of those around him. He's good for one boneheaded play a week, sometimes two. But he's still much better than the popular narrative suggests. Washington is 99th in the country in average third-down distance and eighth in third-down conversions. The Huskies consistently stumble on early downs, stick the ball in Browning’s hands, and ask him to bail them out.

Key figure: Few teams in the country are better at limiting explosive plays against both the pass and run than Washington, which boasts a top 10 defense. That's partly schematic and partly due to personnel.

Cornerback Byron Murphy is a future first-round NFL draft pick. He is as physically and intellectually gifted as they come. He understands his unique advantage as someone so big who can move so fast, and he plays with rare, unteachable, two-steps-ahead vision. He's logged 11 (!) pass breakups so far this season. Reaching 20 is in play.

Grade: B-

Stanford (4-2, 2-1)

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Summary: This isn't your typical Stanford side. David Shaw's men are (avert your eyes) averaging 2.8 yards per carry, the 125th-best mark in the country. Only five teams are worse at running the ball. Old Dominion, New Mexico State, and Liberty are all averaging more yards per rush attempt.

It’s a passing world for Stanford now, particularly with the lingering injury issues sidelining Bryce Love. But don't tell Shaw. His response to calls for the Cardinal to chuck the ball even more was: "Those people don't know me. Those people don't understand this program. Those people don't understand what it takes to get where we are. It's a proven philosophy."

Respectfully, I disagree, but Shaw's still won some big games, because that's what Stanford does. Victories over USC and Oregon look better with each passing week.

Key figure(s): Shaw's insistence on plunging the ball into the line at 2 yards a go puts pressure on Stanford's defense to be extra good, and it hasn't been great the past few weeks. Oregon dropped 31 on the Cardinal, Notre Dame torched them for 38, and Utah hung a 40-spot on them last week.

Senior linebackers Bobby Okereke, Joey Alfieri, and Sean Barton lead the way. They've combined for 12 tackles for loss and 6.5 sacks. They need more.

Grade: B-

Oregon (5-1, 2-1)

Summary: Mario Cristobal wasn’t the splashiest appointment Oregon could have made after Willie Taggart skedaddled to Florida State after one season. But Cristobal has already shown his worth. Known as an elite recruiter, he's proven to be so much more.

Cristobal has said all the typical things about making Oregon bigger and tougher. Here’s the thing: He's been right! The Ducks' win over Washington on Saturday came thanks to an efficient offense and disruptive defense, exactly the way Cristobal wants it.

Oregon is a fumble against Stanford away from being a legitimate playoff contender.

Key figure: The Ducks' defensive front lives in opposing backfields. Jalen Jelks will be a first-round pick in a few months, and Justin Hollins will also play in the NFL.

But neither is better than Jordon Scott, Oregon's squat nose tackle. Seemingly as wide as he is tall, the defensive lineman provides some much-needed size and lane-clogging to an Oregon defense built on speed.

Grade: A

Washington State (5-1, 2-1)

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Summary: Reports of Mike Leach's demise appear to have been greatly exaggerated. He entered 2018 surrounded by noise that this was his final year. Washington State appointed a new athletic director, Kirk Schulz. It felt like Leach's time in Pullman had run its course.

Not so fast! The Cougars had a blistering start to the season, defeating every opponent but USC, and they lost to the Trojans by a field goal.

Leach deserves credit for landing transfer quarterback Gardner Minshew from East Carolina. Yes, Leach always gets production out of his quarterbacks. But Minshew has been much better than the average plug-and-play Air Raid guy. He makes excellent decisions, he's already thrown for over 2,400 yards and 19 touchdowns, and he's completing over 68 percent of his passes.

Key figure: Not content to let the offense take all the credit, WSU's new defensive coordinator Tracy Claeys (yes, that Tracy Claeys) has built a respectable group. The Cougars sit 74th in defensive S&P+, which sounds terrible until you realize this is WASHINGTON STATE. An Air Raid program that finishes inside the top 80 has a chance to win a ton of games.

Leach has already won enough to stave off the wolves for another year, and things don't get much harder from here on out. WSU has played the 98th-ranked schedule thus far and is the favorite in four of its remaining six games.

Claeys needs his defense to hold up. The unit is 10th in the country in sack rate, creating a bunch of negative plays and turnovers. Whether or not it can maintain that level will be the difference between an eight-win and a 10-win season.

Grade: A

Cal (3-3, 0-3)

Summary: After a good start, things have gotten ugly for Cal. Justin Wilcox's team won three straight games to open the season: The Bears beat a bad North Carolina side, snuck past BYU, then hammered Idaho State.

They've rapidly declined since. Wilcox, a vaunted defensive mind, saw his team get housed by Oregon, lose to Arizona, and become the first victim of UCLA's Chip Kelly era, losing 37-7.

Cal's been hampered by ineffective quarterback play. Brandon McIlwain has proven to be a poor decision-maker and lacks the improvisational magic that can help compensate for such a flaw.

On the surface, there’s one winnable game left on the schedule: at Oregon State this week. Post-Corvallis, Wilcox has to run through the Pac-12's best offerings: vs. Washington, at Washington State, at USC, vs. Stanford, and vs. Colorado. Yikes.

Key figure: Wilcox took over from Sonny Dykes under less than auspicious circumstances. He's spent his first 19 months on the job trying to shift the program's football identity from a fun-'n'-gun offensive powerhouse to a rugged, defense-oriented team ... that just so happens to run a fun-'n'-gun offense.

It’s been a struggle, but the Bears have shown positive signs. His defense has developed into a top-10 group at stopping explosive plays, a consistent Achilles heel in the Dykes years.

A four-win season would look bad. But zoom out, and Wilcox has the program trending in the right direction. In 2018, there's not much he can do to bridge the talent gap between his guys and their opponents.

Grade: B

Oregon State (1-5, 0-3)

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Summary: Woof! Where to begin? Let the numbers do the talking. There are 130 Division I teams. The Beavers are 112th in S&P+, 124th in defensive S&P+, 51st in offensive S&P+, and 121st in special teams S&P+.

Jonathan Smith, a branch on the Chris Petersen tree, is in his first year on the job. Oregon State beat Southern Utah in Week 2, kept it close against Nevada, and has gotten waxed by everyone else. The Beavers are projected to lose every game remaining on their schedule.

Key figure: Oregon State ranks 130th (56.9 percent) in opponent third-down conversion and 130th in sack rate (1.8 percent), about as bad a combination as you can get.

Defensive coordinator Tim Tibesar followed Smith from Wisconsin, where he was the outside linebackers coach. Tibesar is dealing with a lack of talent, but there's no world in which a Power 5 school should rank dead last in sack rate.

Grade: D

South Division

USC (4-2, 3-1)

Summary: 2018 was always going to be a retooling year for the Trojans, who lost a stack of talent to the NFL and are starting a true freshman at quarterback. It makes sense that this team would coalesce near the midpoint of the season.

There is no escaping the bad losses to Stanford and Texas. The defeats themselves are nothing to scoff at - both of those programs will compete for their respective conference titles - but it's the way that USC lost, with Clay Helton's team getting outcoached on both sides of the ball. Obvious flaws like JT Daniels' struggles against the blitz haven't been rectified through tactics or development.

The second half of the season, however, lines up nicely for the Trojans. Their final six games are all winnable. They face Notre Dame at home during the final week of the regular season. The Irish have the look of a playoff side, but if USC heads into their meeting riding an eight-game winning streak, the outcome should be a toss-up.

Key figure: Though there's been some buzz around Helton's job status, eight wins should be enough to keep him around. Spinning the results should be easy: USC was young at quarterback and improved as the season went along.

There's plenty of truth to that, and while Daniels isn't the reason USC dropped two early games, he didn't exactly help. The young quarterback has the look of a future star, but right now, he’s averaging a measly 6.7 yards per attempt while tossing seven touchdowns to five interceptions.

His play has deserved better outcomes. Daniels is sharp, with excellent pre- and post-snap awareness. His field vision needs to improve, but that should come with more snaps, and the Trojans' willingness to go through growing pains now will be rewarded later.

Grade: B

Colorado (5-1, 2-1)

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Summary: Colorado's performance on the field has quieted speculation that Mike MacIntyre was on the hot seat. Heading into the season, the award-winning coach was in the middle of a scandal after it was revealed that a woman told him one of his coaches physically abused her. MacIntyre didn't report the allegation to the appropriate authorities, or fire the assistant; he named him the defensive play-caller in the Buffaloes' bowl game.

With a coaching record of 25-38 and an ugly lawsuit at his doorstep (dismissed in July), MacIntyre looked like he was on the outs in Boulder.

Winning changes a lot. MacIntyre, along with the school's AD, was fined $100,000 and suspended for 10 days. His team ripped off a five-game winning streak to open the season, helping the scandal fade from many people's minds.

The Buffs handled their business against UCLA, Colorado State, Nebraska, and New Hampshire, and their win over Arizona State was impressive. However, they fell flat on the road against USC in their big test of the season.

Washington, Washington State, and Utah are still on Colorado's slate, but nine wins isn't out of the realm of possibility.

Key figure: By now, you've probably heard the name Laviska Shenault Jr. Get used to it. He's going to be dominating Saturdays and Sundays for a long time. Shenault is as physically gifted, technically refined, and intelligent as any young receiver I've evaluated.

He continues to perform even though opposing defenses choose to bracket or cone (a morphing double team) him on nearly every snap, particularly when he motions into the slot. He hung four touchdowns on the Sun Devils last week despite commanding the defense's complete attention, because why the hell not?

Grade: B

Utah (4-2, 2-2)

Summary: If you had Utah 4-2 at the midpoint of the season, give yourself a pat on the back.

The Utes have been mighty impressive. Their wins over Stanford and Arizona jump off the page. It's also noteworthy that they kept the loss to Washington State within a score and the setback to Washington within two scores. There's a world in which Utah is 6-0.

Things get trickier from here, as Utah hosts USC, Oregon, and BYU, and travels to UCLA, Arizona State, and Colorado.

Key figure: Kyle Whittingham's longtime confidant Gary Andersen joined him in Salt Lake City this season as the team's associate head coach and defensive line coach. He's made an immediate impact. Utah has jumped into the top 25 in opponent yards per play, restricting foes to a stingy 4.8.

Grade: A

Arizona (3-4, 2-2)

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Summary: Arizona's season could have truly spiraled out of control after the shellacking it took in Houston. Give some credit to Kevin Sumlin, who was brought to Tucson to win right away, not to oversee a rebuild.

Rich Rodriguez was fired for non-football reasons (read: not entirely football reasons). With a Heisman contender at quarterback, the Wildcats' brass expected instant results from the man who won early at Texas A&M.

2018 hasn't panned out that way. There's the Wildcats' bad, small, and slow defense. There's ... whatever’s going on between quarterback Khalil Tate and offensive coordinator Noel Mazzone. And then there is the kind of elementary errors even high school teams usually avoid.

Key figure: Defensive coordinator Marcel Yates was a holdover from Rodriguez's staff, having worked with Sumlin as a co-coordinator back in his Aggie days. Yates' group looked awful to start the year, as a lack of athleticism and poor game plans compounded basic mistakes.

Since the Houston debacle, though, Yates' unit has improved. It conceded 14 points against Oregon State, 20 to USC, and just 17 to Cal. Then the Utes waxed the Wildcats for 42 points, but still, things are trending upward!

Grade: D

Arizona State (3-3, 1-2)

Summary: Admit it: You laughed when Herm Edwards was appointed head football coach of an actual college football team. I did, too.

We're not laughing now (at least not as hard). Edwards has molded the Sun Devils in his own image. They’re a hard-working, defense-oriented team, competitive in every game they’ve played. Every defeat has been by one score: San Diego State (28-21), Washington (27-20), and Colorado (28-21).

Beating Michigan State was the marquee win of Edwards' first season. But it wouldn't stun me if his team managed to knock off one of Stanford, USC, or Oregon.

Key figure: It's not Edward's rah-rah speeches that have made ASU competitive (shocking, I know) - the team is blessed with some real talent. And the Sun Devils don't shoot themselves in the foot - quarterback Manny Wilkins has one turnover all season.

The real star of the show is defensive lineman Renell Wren. Life is easier for everyone up front when a single player can gobble up double teams and pulverize any lineman in the country one on one. Wren is so fast and so strong that opposing offenses are forced to take one of two tracks: double-team him on every play, or limit their offense by running slimmed-down zone designs instead of more intricate gap-scheme runs (where linemen pull or move).

Wren allows the rest of his buddies up front to play with a turbo-charged energy. His skill set is invaluable.

Grade: A

UCLA (1-5, 1-2)

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Summary: Don't look now, but Chip Kelly’s Bruins are starting to turn around. Like many other first-year head coaches, Kelly arrived with all kinds of fanfare and unrealistic expectations. There's a reason UCLA is paying Jim Mora $12 million to not coach there: His team stunk.

Kelly’s rebuild was always going to take time, and it hasn’t looked pretty so far. Big defeats at the hands of Cincinnati, Oklahoma, Fresno State, and Colorado were downright ugly.

Now that we have more data points, however, it appears that every single one of those teams is good. They're each in the top 52 of S&P+, with two in the top 12. Cincinnati is 31st!

Essentially, Kelly’s team faced a gauntlet to start the year. And the Bruins did so, for the most part, with a true freshman at quarterback following an injury to veteran Wilton Speight.

Key figure: Kelly got his first win of the season Saturday in a convincing victory over Cal. The Bruins dominated all four quarters and made opposing quarterback McIlwain look incompetent.

Meanwhile, true freshman Dorian Thompson-Robinson displayed impressive growth. There's no doubt that UCLA's staff is coaching around the QB spot, but Thompson-Robinson did an excellent job of following the old cliche: Take what the defense gives you.

He still looks like a high schooler out there, but he's improving each week.

Playing the freshman wasn't part of the plan. In the long term, though, it might do Thompson-Robinson and Kelly a world of good.

Grade: C-

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