College Football Notebook: PAC 10 Playing Some Defense?

By JOHN P. WISE
One Great Season

The PAC 10 has long been an offensive league with video-game scores every Saturday.

Through three weeks, three teams are among the top seven nationally in scoring offense, and four are ranked in the top 13.

But in addition to leading the country with 63 points per game, Oregon also leads the nation in fewest points allowed — 4.33 per outing. Arizona is seventh and Stanford is ranked 15th.

Surely none of these teams will maintain this type of defensive dominance once league play heats up, but it's worth mentioning that a pinball league can get some stops for a change. The PAC 10 race could be the most interesting one to watch this season.

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No. 24: Oregon State Beavers

The One Great Season College Football Countdown continues Tuesday. We'll be counting down the preseason Top 25 teams in 2010. Today's No. 24 is Oregon State.

By JOHN P. WISE
One Great Season

I remember during preseason last year hearing an ESPN analyst emphasize two things when evaluating a team's chances for a successful college football season: your schedule and the experience level of your quarterback.

If those are indeed two significant factors, then Oregon State could have some trouble matching its 8-4 regular season from a year ago.

One of the nation's most difficult non-conference schedules has OSU opening September against Top 10s TCU and Boise State in two of its first three games. And Oregon State will be doing so with first-year quarterback Ryan Katz.

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