Pac-10 Report: Stanford Doesn't Waste Time Getting Into League Play

This particular short straw has Stanford's name on it. The Cardinal are the opening act of the Pac-10 season. And that's just the way it is.

There's no warming up with two or three non-conference games to work out the kinks. It's into the fire for the Cardinal. Again.

Of the four season openers Stanford has played since Jim Harbaugh arrived on the Farm, three have been Pac-10 games. In fact, Stanford has opened the season with a Pac-10 game every season since 2006. Last week, the Cardinal bucked that trend and debuted against Sacramento State.

But once again, Stanford is first out of the blocks for conference play, taking on UCLA at the Rose Bowl in Week Two.

Asked why it works out that way -- Is the Cardinal volunteering for this duty? Is the opportunity to play on TV a factor? - Harbaugh shrugged.

"I can't answer that," Harbaugh said. "I haven't researched that. We just get ready for the games that are coming.

"We've always looked at it, is that we play all of our other Pac-10 teams and that's nine games," Harbaugh said. "We can't say, 'We'll play our non-conference games first and the Pac-10 games later.' You're going to have to play them early. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's ... I don't know. It's the only way we've done it."

The Cardinal appeared in the national rankings this week at No. 25, after a short stint at the outer border of the rankings last season. There is reason to feel confident about the UCLA matchup.

Stanford won handily in week one, defeating the overmatched Hornets, 52-17. Quarterback Andrew Luck had a good day, throwing for a career-high four touchdowns and more than 300 yards in the first half. The Cardinal's pool of running backs -- the gaggle assigned to replace the production of Toby Gerhart -- performed well, collecting 213 yards with eight different ballcarriers.

But Harbaugh said he's not buying into the running back by committee concept. At least he's not calling it that.

"We're a football team that has some good running backs," Harbaugh said.

It was not all good news for Stanford on Tuesday. Tight end Levin Toilolo is lost for the season with a knee injury incurred on the second play of the game. Toilolo took a pass from Luck, gained 17 yards and was hit in the knee by the helmet of his tackler. He will have surgery to repair a torn anterior cruciate ligament.

Wide receiver Chris Owusu and linebacker Shayne Skov both missed the opener and Harbaugh was cagey about their return in time for the Bruins. He will not address the specifics of the injuries, saying only that they are "working through something" and that they will be "day-to-day."

Nor will he discuss the prospects that No. 1 tailback Jeremy Stewart will be available after sustaining an apparent injury against Sac State.

Harbaugh said the offensive guard Andrew Phillips is doing as well as can be expected following the death of his father, Bill Phillips, in a well-publicized plane crash in Alaska on Aug. 9 that also killed former Alaska senator Ted Stevens.

Harbaugh indicated that Phillips, a senior, considered taking the season off to go home to Washington D.C. to be with his family.

"I think at first, he struggled with playing football this season or supporting his family and his mother was 100 percent wanting him to play," Harbaugh said. "Knowing Bill Phillips the way I know Bill Phillips, he would want Andrew to be playing and would want to see a tough guy out there on the field. That's the way Bill raised those boys.

"I think Andrew is coming to grips with that and moving forward."

UCLA Struggles on Offense

For UCLA, the Stanford game will be the earliest conference game since the Bruins played Stanford on Sept. 1, 2007, winning 45-17. The last time the Bruins opened the home schedule with a Pac-10 game was Sept. 4, 1993.

The Bruins are coming off the 31-22 loss at Kansas State, giving up a Pac-10 high 313 rushing yards.

It was also a tough day on offense, where starting quarterback Kevin Prince was 9-of-26 for 120 yards. UCLA was 3-of-13 on third down.

"It's just got to get better," UCLA coach Rick Neuheisel said of his team's third-down conversion rate. "It wasn't a protection issue. It was a throwing and catching issue. We feel like we've got guys in position to make plays whether the ball wasn't there, or it was dropped, we just didn't make enough of those."

Neuheisel acknowledged that Prince was rusty after missing most of training camp with a torn muscle in his back.

"I thought he managed the game well, ran the ball fairly well," Neuheisel said. "The thing he was rusty at was accuracy. From a decision-making standpoint, he was in pretty good shape. But the ball just wasn't where it needed to be all the time. Sometimes we needed to catch the ball and sometimes we needed a better football. Truthfully, I had to expected a little of that considering that he missed most of camp."

Oregon Turns Up the Heat

Oregon holed up in its indoor practice facility Tuesday, shut the doors, turned up the heater and added some water to raise the humidity level in order to get ready for Saturday's game in Knoxville against Tennessee.

"Eight-five degrees, 65 percent humidity," Oregon coach Chip Kelly said. "If you want to come on vacation, come to Oregon, it's beautiful here, but we don't get a lot of humidity, so we've got to manufacture some."

The Ducks head to Tennessee for one of the marquee games of the weekend, but the ties to the south extend further now with the announcement that the Ducks will take on LSU next Sept. 3 in the "Cowboys Classic" in Cowboy Stadium.

LSU is 13-3 all-time against the Pac-10.

The Ducks had the most overwhelming victory of the week, defeating New Mexico, 72-0.

And now it's on to Knoxville and a hostile crowd that will likely top 100,000. The game will mark the season debut of LaMichael James, who sat out the New Mexico game for disciplinary reasons.

"We can't be concerned with the crowd and the stadium," Kelly said. "It's one of the storied places in college football. But guys on this team have played at Michigan and the (L.A.) Coliseum. It's a big game. But the game is played on the field and not in the stadium."

Kiffin on Defensive About Defense

USC's defense made the biggest impression last Thursday against Hawaii and it was not the good kind. The Trojans gave up 524 yards and 49 points -- the yardage was the worst total in the Pac-10 last week, the points second-worst behind Washington State -- and were soundly ripped by the time USC left the islands.

Trojans coach Lane Kiffin was on the defensive about defense on Tuesday.

"One game will not define us, just like it won't define Matt (Barkley) on offense," Kiffin said. "Let's take a couple of games before we make big statements about sides of the ball. It's an ongoing process, and I look for us to play a lot better this week.

"Now if we play like that the first three weeks of the season, then yeah, we have a confidence issue. We're going to have a lot of issues."

Oregon State Regrouping After Loss

Oregon State coach Mike Riley acknowledged that Jacquizz Rodgers, considered the Pac-10's premier running back, was taken out of last week's loss to TCU. Rodgers finished with 75 yards on 18 carries. He scored one touchdown. And he did not catch a pass.

Riley called that a "failure" for his team.

"We did not get involved in that part of the passing game enough and had no rhythm with it," Riley said. "And for some of the stuff that goes down the field, he's got to be a primary check-down."

The Beavers have a bye this week and will take on Louisville on Sept. 18. Riley said that will give the coaching staff more time to examine what went wrong against TCU.

"You can use it as a teaching tool. And since we have a bye, we can spend every minute with it for a couple of days. I love that," Riley said.

The Beavers have already come up as potential spoilers to Boise State's national title hopes. Oregon State will play on the Broncos' blue field on Sept. 25.