We are cruising campus today, but here are some interesting notes I found to tide us over until game time.
Some notes to get you through the hours until Saturday. Many thanks to ESPN Stats & Information.
- Four Pac-12 teams are already bowl-eligible: Stanford, Oregon, Arizona State and Washington (USC doesn't count due to NCAA sanctions). Three more can become bowl-eligible with a victory Saturday: California, UCLA and Utah. UCLA and Utah are playing each other, so at least one more team will become bowl-eligible.
- Stanford can clinch the Pac-12 North with a victory over Oregon. The Cardinal haven't won a conference championship since 1999. With a win, Oregon puts itself in the driver’s seat in the Pac-12 North and a third consecutive outright Pac-12 title is well within reach. How impressive would that be? USC (three times) is the only other school since the conference formed in 1959 to win three outright conference titles in a row.
- The Ducks gave the Cardinal their only loss last season, a 52-31 walloping in Eugene. But Stanford hasn't lost since, winning 17 straight — the longest active streak in FBS.
- Oregon has won eight of nine against Stanford. It also has won 18 consecutive conference games, last losing at Stanford in 2009.
- Stanford’s remaining three regular season games are at home, a place where they’ve won 11 straight times.
- No team has been better than Stanford in the red zone this season. The Cardinal are a perfect 52-for-52 in the red zone, and 41 of those scores have been touchdowns.
- Oregon quarterback Darron Thomas has thrown at least one touchdown pass in 21 consecutive games.
- With a win, Stanford will have the first back-to-back 10-win seasons in school history. In fact, entering last season, Stanford had only three 10-win seasons ever.
- Stanford targets its tight ends on 35.6 percent of its pass attempts this season. The Cardinal tight ends have caught a touchdown in every game this season and in 19 of 22 games since the start of 2010. No other BCS top-10 team utilizes its tight ends in the passing game as often as Stanford. The Cardinal go to the tight ends at an even greater rate inside of the red zone. Overall, the tight ends are targeted on 48.5 percent of Stanford’s red zone passes and have caught 13 of Stanford’s 19 red zone touchdowns.
