College Football Notes : USC, UCLA Losses May Signal Arrival of New Wave in Pac-10

Is it basketball season yet in the Pacific 10 Conference?

How else do you explain Southern Cal losing a 13-point lead with six minutes left, and ultimately the game, to Illinois in its season opener Sept. 2?

Or last Saturday, when UCLA lost, 24-6, to down-and-out Tennessee at the Rose Bowl? Both the Trojans and the Bruins were considered two of top 10 teams at the time, and both were expected to contend for the national championship.

Those defeats have breathed new life into the conference’s other teams, especially Oregon State and Washington State. Both teams are unbeaten going into Saturday’s suddenly meaningful showdown in Pullman, Wash.

“If they (the Beavers) can stay healthy, they can challenge for the Pac 10 championship,� said first-year Washington State Coach Mike Price, who took over when Dennis Erickson departed last spring for Miami. “If we can stay healthy, we can compete for the Pac 10 championship. The only difference between the haves and have-nots is depth.�

Oregon State knows about being have-nots. The Beavers hadn’t won back-to-back games in 11 years, and are looking to make it three straight for the first time since 1970. Oregon State has not gone to the Rose Bowl since 1964.

In fact, this marks the first time since 1915 that Oregon State and Washington State each will be unbeaten going into their annual game.

A big reason for Washington State’s early-season success is quarterback Brad Gossen. A junior, Gossen took over when Timm Rosenbach, the nation’s leader last year in passing efficiency, put himself in the National Football League’s supplemental draft. Gossen leads the country in passing efficiency, with 31 completions in 49 attempts, five touchdowns, one interception and 605 yards.

Meanwhile, Southern Cal Coach Larry Smith wasn’t happy with some of the things he saw during that nationally televised, 14-13 defeat to Illinois in Los Angeles.

He will make some wholesale changes for Saturday’s game against Utah State.

Included among the changes is the benching of starting halfback Aaron Emanuel and starting strong safety Cleveland Colter, a preseason All-American candidate. Smith also made two changes on the offensive line.

“It could be a long time before our offense gets back to where it was, maybe not even this year,� said Smith. “It takes a long time to develop that synch. I’m not saying it’s going to be miserable, but ... “

The victory over UCLA gave the Tennessee program its most significant win, and much-maligned Johnny Majors his biggest boost, since the Volunteers pounded highly favored Miami in the 1986 Sugar Bowl. It took a lot of the preseason heat off Majors, whose team lost its first five last year and finished 5-6.

“The past is the past,� said Majors, whose Volunteers are 2-0 and ranked 17th entering Saturday’s game against Duke. “We can’t let anybody think about it. We need to be as hungry as we can be, because we have a lot of improvement to make.�

The Blue Devils are 3-1 against Tennessee since Majors returned to Knoxville, Tenn., 13 years ago, and Duke Coach Steve Spurrier is 3-0 against Southeastern Conference teams.

The SEC is 6-1 this year against non-conference opponents, and has five teams in The Associated Press top 25. Nine of the 10 teams received votes.

It will be three years come December since Bobby Ross left Maryland for Georgia Tech -- with a short stop in Buffalo as the Bills’ quarterback coach -- and it has becoming increasingly apparent that the former Terps coach made, at best, a questionable career decision.

As bad as things are in College Park, Md., they are a great deal worse in Atlanta, where Tech has yet to win an Atlantic Coast Conference game under Ross. The Yellow Jackets, who lost, 38-28, last week to North Carolina State, will go for 15 straight ACC defeats Saturday at home against Virginia.

“We have a big challenge,� said Ross. “We go into the game feeling we can win. The game we already played shouldn’t tear us down. We have to look to the positive and build from there.�

One thing has not changed since his days at Maryland. Ross is certain never to be on the list of the most quotable college football coaches. Then again, after Lou Holtz, it is a pretty short list.

Though Holtz is eminently quotable, he is a master of double talk. Before the Kickoff Classic two weeks ago, the Notre Dame coach was asked about how tough a game he expected from Virginia.

“They’re a very good team,� Holtz said of the Cavaliers, who would lose to the top-ranked Fighting Irish, 36-13. “They beat Clemson last year, and Clemson beat Oklahoma in the Citrus Bowl.�

Asked earlier this week for his reaction to Virginia’s upset last Saturday at Penn State, and how the Nittany Lions might stack up later in the year against Notre Dame, Holtz said, “I never compare scores of games.�

The Cavaliers, after getting scored on the first five times Notre Dame had the ball, haven’t given up a touchdown for six quarters

How young a team does Mack Brown have at North Carolina? In the Tar Heels’ season-opening rout of VMI, 29 North Carolina players were making their collegiate debuts.

Before the season began, the Florida State-LSU matchup in Baton Rouge, La., appeared to be one of those games that would have a big impact on this season’s national championship.

Now, it won’t make a dent. That is the result of two straight defeats for the Seminoles (to Southern Mississippi and Clemson) and LSU’s season-opening loss at Texas A&M.;

“The game has taken on a whole new look since the beginning of the year, when it looked like the game of the century,� said Florida State Coach Bobby Bowden. ‘But it still ought to be a heck of a game.�

But will anybody watch (on ESPN)?

Indiana tailback Anthony Thompson, one of those mentioned prominently for this year’s Heisman Trophy, is the only active collegiate player listed in a recent book called “NCAA Legends.�

Thompson did not add to that legend last weekend. Though he rushed for 117 yards in a 17-14 season-opening defeat against Kentucky, Thompson was stopped trying to go over the top of the goal line in the closing minutes.

The Wildcats, who led the country in graduation rate last year, have a chance to go 2-0 this week against North Carolina.

Last Saturday’s nationally televised game between woeful Wisconsin and powerful Miami drew a crowd of 38,000 in Madison, the lowest single-game attendance there since 1968. Last year’s game against Western Michigan drew 830 more people.

Through last weekend, the nation’s field-goal kickers seemed to be making the adjustment of going without a tee. More than 70 percent of field-goal tries have been successful, better than the season high of 68.2 set in 1984.

Quote of the Week: “They were clearly such a dominant team over us, it’s frightening. Either they have been greatly miscalculated, or this might be the poorest team we’ve had here,� UCLA Coach Terry Donahue after his Bruins lost to Tennessee.