1.Rich Brooks, the former head coach at Oregon and Kentucky, has seen the No. 5 Ducks play the past two weeks. “They’re a very, very good football team,” Brooks said. “They have a lot of speed and skill on offense and they are very quick on defense. I’m not sure they can stand up to Stanford. Arizona is a physical team, too.” The Cardinal, the only Pac-10 team to beat the Ducks a year ago, play at Oregon on Oct. 2.
2.I admire how WAC commissioner Karl Benson has talked tough about holding Fresno State and Nevada to their league commitment into 2012. The parties are negotiating. It’s encouraging to see what happened in the Big 12. Nebraska and Colorado said they didn’t owe the league anything. The Big 12 said they owed $35 million. The parties settled on about $15 million from the two schools combined. The one difference: The Big 12 wants to move on to its lucrative future. No one is describing the WAC’s future as lucrative.
3.I’m guessing that Tulane coach Bob Toledo, discussing how hard the Green Wave played in their Sept. 11 loss to Ole Miss, didn’t intend to comment on the intelligence of anyone playing Monday Night Football. Said Toledo, “I’ve never been one of those guys to come away with moral victories. It’s kind of like the Saints and the 49ers last night, you either win or you lose. There is no gray matter.”