Tag: listicle

CollegeWire writers make their Week 4 Pac-12 selections

Does Colorado have a chance? Can Ole Miss beat Alabama? Will the Irish go down to the Chop? Find out how our Pac-12 writers see things.

The race for the very last Pac-12 football championship official begins this week as every team has a conference game. With eight of the 12 teams ranked, this week should promise to have some good games and see who are contenders and who are pretenders.

Week 4 also provides some intriguing matchups from across the country that will be must-see TV and the CollegeWire Pac-12 writers have thrown out their predictions for those games as well.

The majority of the television audience will be glued to ABC at 12:30 to find out if Colorado is truly for real as the Buffaloes make their way to Autzen Stadium to take on the Ducks.

Oregon is favored by three touchdowns, so does any of our writers give Deion Sanders’ team a chance? How will the BuffsWire writers select that game?

Here are our Week 4 selections for the Pac-12 and some other big-time games from around the nation.

Pac-12 QB rankings after 2 weeks of the 2023 season

The usual names are at the top of the quarterback rankings, but some new players are creating a deep Pac-12 Conference.

Quarterback play is going to highlight the Pac-12 this season with many high-quality signal callers littered throughout the league.

The usual names are at the top of the rankings, but it’s players such as Shedeur Sanders and Cameron Ward that make the Pac-12 such a deep conference. Defensive coordinators are not having a fun time trying to come up with suitable game plans.

In our first edition, some new names fill out the rankings and it should create a flexible list throughout the season. Here are the full rankings, according to the PFF grades system.

CollegeWire writers make their Week 2 Pac-12 selections

The CollegeWire Pac-12 scribes met up and predicted how Week 2 of the season will go down.

Deion Sanders and the Colorado Buffaloes gave the Pac-12 a perfect Week 1 and they also gave our friends over at BuffaloesWire something significant to talk about for the first time in a long while.

Even Stanford, who is picked to finish last, managed a win over Hawaii.

Now as Week 2 approaches, that success is expected to wain just a bit as the competition gets a little tougher. But there are still a lot of questions to be answered such as can Colorado handle success? Will Oregon be tested in its first road game of the season? And can UCLA go into SEC Country and bring home a win?

Our Pac-12 writers from across the three sites bring you our predictions for a busy second full week of the college football season.

15 Chiefs with the most to prove in 2023

These 15 #Chiefs have the most to prove in 2023 as Kansas City endeavors to win its second-straight Super Bowl title.

The Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl aspirations hinge on the arm of quarterback Patrick Mahomes more than any other factor. Mahomes’ dominance in recent years has been nothing short of a miracle for Kansas City, and the team has two championship rings to show for his efforts.

But for the reigning MVP, there isn’t much left to prove. He has already shown an acumen for winning big games, secured himself one of the biggest contracts in pro sports, and is an icon who is seen on television daily.

Mahomes’ teammates now bear the burden of keeping his legacy and, by extension, the team’s reign as NFL champions, afloat. After a successful training camp and preseason, some of the quarterback’s cohorts have more to prove than others, especially after roster cuts left many of Kansas City’s most promising prospects without a place on the team’s payroll.

Check out our top 15 Chiefs with something to prove ahead of the 2023 season kickoff on August 7:

Oregon’s all-time record against new Big Ten rivals

The Oregon Ducks have some new peers around them. Here’s how they’ve stacked up over the years against each Big Ten opponent.

With the news that Oregon is leaving the Pac-12 for the greener pastures of the Big Ten, we thought it would be a good idea to see how the Ducks have fared against their so-to-be new rivals and peers.

Oregon has played every current member of the Big Ten except Maryland and Rutgers, with the Ducks having some pretty good success. The only team that has had its way with Oregon, not surprisingly, is Ohio State as the Buckeyes have won nine of the 10 meetings. That one Duck win, however, came in the last meeting as Oregon ran over and through Ohio State in the Horseshoe.

The Big Ten Conference is about to have a lot of members out west, but this is how the Ducks have done against the conference’s current teams.

The most important cornerbacks to know in the 2023 Pac-12 season

The Pac-12 is littered with some talented corners and they will be heavily tested in 2023 as the conference has elite QB play.

As we continue our preview of the 2023 college football season in the Pac-12 conference, we are going to shift our focus from individual teams to individual positions. The last several weeks have been spent picking apart each school out west, finding where they improved the most over the offseason, and identifying what realistic expectations should be for them going forward.

You can see them all here: Arizona Wildcats — Arizona State Sun Devils — California Golden Bears — Colorado Buffaloes — Oregon State Beavers — Stanford Cardinal — UCLA Bruins — USC Trojans — Utah Utes — Washington Huskies — Washington State Cougars

Now, we’re going to look at position groups as a whole in the conference. Whether it’s a quarterback or a linebacker, a punter or a safety, there are dozens of highly talented players out west. We want to go through them all, position group by position group, and highlight some of the most important names that fans should know at each spot.

Quarterbacks — Wide Receivers — Running Backs — Tight Ends — Offensive Line — Defensive Line

It may not be the best season to be a corner in the Pac-12. The conference will display some of the elite quarterback play college football has to offer. The receivers in this league are also pretty good, so the cornerbacks are going to be put to the test week after week after week.

Why a corner would want to transfer into the Pac-12 in 2023 is a legitimate question. But for those players who want to make a name for themselves and want to be noticed as the guy who stifled a quarterback like Bo Nix or Caleb Williams, this league will provide the perfect opportunity for just that.

We profile those corners in the Pac-12 that will have their meddle tested in 2023.

On a team full of stars, the Ducks have their underrated players too

Oregon football has its share of stars, but it also has some “glue guys” that keep it all together and that value can be underrated.

As we prepare for the upcoming college football season, much of our conversations as Ducks fans revolve around the stars: Bo Nix, Bucky Irving, Troy Franklin, and more. We also discuss coaches plenty, as they are heavy on the recruiting trail, searching for players in the class of 2024.

Today, I looked at 10 of the most important players on the 2023 Oregon Ducks that we at Ducks Wire don’t talk about as much. These are players you likely are aware of, and some you’ll know well. Regardless of their skill level, I believe that every player on this list has had one aspect of their game underestimated or undervalued.

For some players, they were underrated in the recruiting process. For some they are undervalued by Ducks fans and college football fans alike, and sometimes perhaps by their own coaches. Regardless of the reason, all of these players deserve a little bit more of each conversation about Ducks football devoted to them.

Oregon ranks among the best receiver rooms in the country

The Pac-12 has some great quarterbacks this season, but in order to be great, they need, and have, premier receivers to throw to.

We all know the college football season is going to be one of the most exciting seasons in a long while as the Pac-12 has three legitimate contenders for the College Football Playoff.

All of that has to be because of the quarterback talent that happens to be playing in the conference. USC’s Caleb Williams is the reigning Heisman winner, Oregon’s Bo Nix and even Washington’s Michael Penix, Jr. who showed what he could do with the talent surrounding him.

But those quarterbacks don’t win the game on their own. They aren’t chucking the football down the field to just anyone. Having premier talent to throw to is a huge bonus and the guys in the Pac-12 certainly have great talent down the field.

The analytic site PFF.com has put together the Top 10 receiver rooms in the country. This is where the Pac-12 teams shake out in comparison to others from around the nation. We have included the quarterback for each team and the receivers’ career stats.

Which Pac-12 quarterback ranks the highest based on returning production?

The Pac-12 QB class is as deep as it’s ever been. Which school should feel the best based on what their passer has done over the course of his career?

The Pac-12 Conference, or its many iterations, probably has never seen the talent pool at quarterback be so high or so diverse.

It runs the gambit of having a Heisman Trophy winner, a four-year starter entering his fifth season, pro-style QBs, running quarterbacks, incoming transfers, and even the No. 1 rated high school QB looking to start his career.

What it equals is exciting offenses in 2023 and a complete nightmare for 12 defensive coordinators whose job it is to prepare to slow down these talented and some future NFL quarterbacks.

In this list, we rate the 12 most-likely starters for the 2023 season based on what they’ve already done in their career.

How Oregon’s spring game attendance stacked up to nations’ best in 2023

Oregon drew around 45,000 fans for its spring game and that ranked favorable among other teams from around the country.

There was a time when only SEC teams would pack their stadiums for their spring game.

Oregon and Chip Kelly changed that with the success of the program and the honoring of the military. The coaches who came after Kelly have kept up that tradition. Over the past decade, the Ducks drew a little over 40,000 fans every April. Slowly but surely, other Pac-12 programs are catching up.

But it’s still a game of catch-up. Oregon still leads the way. Colorado packed Folsom Field because the Buffaloes hired Deion Sanders as a coach. It’ll be interesting to see if that keeps up once he leaves.

We take a look at where Oregon stacked up in attendance in comparison to other teams from around the country. One thing is for sure, though: interest in college football is at an all-time sky-high.