COUGARS

With USC and Oregon facing off, all Pac-10 eyes will probably be on Eugene tonight. And that makes sense. Especially considering there are three teams not playing this week: Washington, Stanford and Arizona. So there is less to link to and to read about. But what's there, we have. Read on.
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• Washington State: From the moment I got on the plane in Spokane I noticed it. The crimson shirts were in greater number this week than usual for a road game. When I got over to Seattle it became even more obvious. The Alaska flight to Austin was chock full of Cougar boosters. So I asked the attendant, who turned out to be a Couger herself, and she said Thursday's flight was packed with the WSU faithful. I don't know if this is a cliché or what, be she said – and this is the god's honest truth – they ran out of vodka, gin, rum ... OK, enough of that. ... We had our advance today centered around Jason Stripling, and out game day stuff, which you can find if scroll down this post. ... Freelancer Howie Stalwick had this advance in the News Tribune and other papers. ... From the Notre Dame side, there is this column in the South Bend Tribune about former coach Bill Doba. It should not be missed. And there is also this advance.

• Around the Pac-10: ESPN.com's Ted Miller goes all Halloween on us. ... Buster Sports' Nick Daschel points out some of the conference's better unknown players. And there is a WSU defender listed. ... ...Washington: Bye week, bye to stories. ... Oregon State: The Beavers intend to take it to UCLA. ... Oregon: As Pee-Wee used to say: Big game, big stakes. Cal: This is becoming a recurring theme. A team plays WSU, wins handily, but the next week is banged up. Wonder if the at least Cougars hit hard? ... Stanford: Maybe the Cardinal should be Oregon's biggest fans. ... USC: The Ducks' passing game in on the Trojans' radar. ...UCLA: The Bruins could be 0-5 in the month after today's game. ... Arizona State: Dennis Erickson challenges his team. ... Arizona: No game, yet a story.

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• That's all for this morning. Before the game this evening, we'll have our usual pregame post. Maybe we'll try to get all out clichéd Halloween references out of our system then. We I was young, an editor I respected told me only hack writers wrote Halloween leads. So to keep my International Brotherhood of Hacks' card, I'll have to work something in today. Until then …

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