As Stanford and Arizona State prepare to do battle this Saturday, it’s interesting to note each team’s schedule thus far. In marching to 8-1 on the season Stanford has seen most of the teams on its schedule struggle thus far. Oregon, USC, and Arizona are the only teams with winning records. That’s not to impugn their 8-1 record because they still have had to find ways to defeat all of these teams. And their one loss came came against the one truly quality opponent on their schedule, the Oregon Ducks.
Ok, so Arizona is also a quality opponent and that whupping they laid on them is certainly worthy of respect. And since the Oregon game they’ve started to roll with some big wins. It will be interesting to see how the BCS bowls look at their schedule in deciding whether they’re worthy of an at-large berth.
Arizona State has played a similar schedule in facing three winning teams (Wisconsin, Oregon, USC). They hung tough with the Badgers who have had a very quality 2010 season and are in contention for a BCS berth. Against Oregon they actually held a 24-14 lead, but then they managed to give up 28 straight points and couldn’t rebound. The Sun Devils can best be described as inconsistent. They would hang close on the road with Wisconsin and then get absolutely destroyed at Cal. It will be interesting to see how they handle Stanford at home.