Welcome to my second monthly recap of my 2015 “Picking the Winners” Pac-12 preview (which has appeared annually on USCFootball.com for the past decade or so). My first recap, on Sept. 30, covered September’s results. And I’ll take a complete look back in a post-season, pre-bowl overview in December. If you missed my picks in the feature story, here’s the link:

15th Annual ‘Picking the Winners’ Pac-12 Preview

My October mark of 17-9, upped my overall record for the season to 49-18 (.731). Arizona‘s struggles and USC‘s upheaval (and Washington taking advantage of both), along with Washington State‘s emergence were my main nemeses. Let’s see how things shook out — my best picks, my worst picks, and how my preseason expectations for each team compared with the month’s reality.

Week 5

Best Pick

• Oregon over Colorado (picked 54-24; actual 41-24)

Worst Pick

• UCLA over Arizona State, 30-28 (actual: Arizona State 38, UCLA 23)
  

As we moved more completely into the conference season, the realities of this year’s teams start to really shake out vs. the expectations we were all working with before the season. So, though I picked three of four games correctly on the week of October 3, the closest I got to an actual score/margin was Oregon‘s 17-point win at Colorado — and even that score is affected by the Ducks’ struggles and Colorado’s improvement. In my other wins, I had Stanford beating Arizona by 17 (the Cardinal won by 38) and California by three TDs over Washington State (the six-point margin looked much less confusing by the end of October).

And, let’s be honest: that worst pick, my only loss on the week, was maybe more shocking after what led up to UCLA‘s match-up with Arizona State in Pasadena than it seemed before the season began. The Bruins were riding high at 4-0, and the Devils, at 2-2, were coming off a whipping in Tempe at the hands of USC. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Week 6

Best Picks

• Utah over California (picked 38-31; actual 30-24)
  
• Arizona over Oregon State (picked 45-17 actual 44-7)
• Arizona State over Colorado (picked 42-27; actual 48-23)

Worst Picks

• Oregon over Washington State, 57-20 (actual: Washington State 45, Oregon 38 — 2OT)
  
• USC over Washington, 44-24 (actual: Washington 17, USC 12)

This was a very Jekyll-and-Hyde week for me, as my three wins were all actually pretty solid picks in relation to final score and/or margin — led clearly by my choice of Utah in a tight home victory over Cal.

However, those two bad picks were on the “wow” level, as Oregon‘s early season slide merged with Washington State‘s continuing emergence in Eugene. Meanwhile, in one of the worst football games I’ve ever seen in person, a so-so Washington team outlasted seemingly disinterested USC on a Thursday night in L.A. Of course, with the upheaval in the USC program that came just days later, the Trojans’ performance seems less odd in retrospect.

Week 7

Best Picks

• Washington State over Oregon State (picked 35-27; actual 52-31)
  
• Stanford over UCLA (picked 34-24; actual 56-35)

Worst Picks

• Arizona State over Utah, 33-27 (actual: Utah 34, Arizona State 18)
• USC over Notre Dame, 38-28 (actual: Notre Dame 41, USC 31)

My worst week of the year so far (3-3) really showcased the changing realities in the 2015 season mentioned earlier. Washington State? Better than expected. Utah? Way up! Arizona State? Down. USC? In turmoil. Colorado? Not quite ready to pull the big upset. Stanford? Turning into a playoff contender. UCLA? Injuries destroying its defense.

Week 8

Best Picks

• UCLA over California (picked 41-24; actual 40-24)
• USC over Utah (picked 27-13; actual 42-24)
• Stanford over Washington (picked 37-7; actual 31-14)

Worst Pick

• Arizona over Washington State, 40-20 (actual: Washington State, Arizona 42)
  

Man, soooooo close on that UCLA–Cal pick! Getting so close on that one was a positive precursor to one of the better 3-2 weeks you can have. I had USC over Utah by 14 in preseason — and Utah over USC by 15 in my weekly preview for USCFootball.com. The Trojans, though, rose from their apparent collective grave to whip the stunned Utes and the final margin landed awfully close to my initial call. On the other end of the spectrum, Mike Leach’s Washington State club pulled off its latest road shocker, this time in Tucson — blowing my preseason choice right out of the water like a cannon-shot to a pirate ship.

Week 9

Best Picks

• Utah over Oregon State (picked 33-17; actual 27-12)
  
• USC over California (picked 42-34; actual 27-21)

Worst Pick

• Arizona over Washington, 38-28 (actual: Washington 49, Arizona 3)

My best week of October was its final week, as I correctly picked five out of six outcomes. And, by margin of victory, I had two of my best choices of the season: Utah over Oregon State by 16 (final margin: 15) and USC over California by eight (final margin: six).

However, Washington really gave me my money’s worth out of that single loss: a 56-point swing from pick to reality, as the Huskies had their best performance of 2015 against a floundering Arizona club.

October Expectations vs. Reality

With nine incorrect picks, once again there’s plenty of shakeup when looking at my expectations for each squad vs. the reality. Let’s start from the Pacific Northwest and head down the coast before curling back inland.

• Washington (picked 0-4, 0-4 in Pac-12; reality 2-2, 2-2): The Huskies scored two unexpected victories over expected South Division contenders USC and Arizona.
• Washington State (picked 1-4, 1-4 in Pac-12; reality 3-2, 3-2): Only a late Stanford comeback kept the resurgent Cougars from winning four of five in October.
• Oregon State (picked 1-3, 1-3 in Pac-12; reality 0-4, 0-4): My only miss on Oregon State so far this season: picking them to beat Colorado at home. Instead, the Buffs broke a 14-game conference losing streak and a 13-game conference road losing streak.
• Oregon (picked 4-0, 4-0 in Pac-12; reality 3-1, 3-1): Another victim of surprising Washington State. The Ducks finished the month with a dramatic OT win at Arizona State. Can they ride the momentum from that through season’s end?
• California (picked 1-3, 1-3 in Pac-12; reality 1-3, 1-3): I called for an October downturn for the Bears — and got all four of their games correct. My only mistake on Cal’s schedule remains picking a loss in its eventual one-point win at Texas.
• Stanford (picked 4-0, 4-0 in Pac-12; reality 4-0, 4-0): Nailed it!
• UCLA (picked 3-1, 3-1 in Pac-12; reality 2-2, 2-2): That ASU loss really was a stunner, even with the Bruins’ injury problems.
• USC (picked 4-0, 3-0 in Pac-12; reality 2-2, 2-1 ): With the Sark episode mixed into the middle of one of the toughest stretches in USC’s schedule (@ Notre Dame, Utah, @ Cal), it’s no shock that the Trojans suffered a couple of unexpected losses. While there’s no shame losing in South Bend, Sark’s last game — the loss to Washington — was brutal.
• Arizona State (picked 2-2, 2-2 in Pac-12; reality 2-2, 2-2): Always fun to see the pick match the reality, isn’t it? No, it’s not. ASU’s stunner over UCLA was the hiccup, and by the time it rolled around, the Devils loss at Utah wasn’t much of a shock.
• Arizona (picked 3-2, 3-2 in Pac-12; reality 2-3, 2-3): While I wasn’t exactly a buyer of the idea that Arizona would, once again, challenge for the South Division crown (see my preseason pick of Colorado over the Wildcats), I really didn’t expect them to fall to both of the Washington schools.
• Utah (picked 2-2, 2-2 in Pac-12; reality 3-1, 3-1): Without USC’s win over the Utes, I’d have really struggled with my Utah picks this month!
• Colorado (picked 1-4, 1-4 in Pac-12; reality 1-4, 1-4): Like ASU, the matching results reflect a pair of misses. That will happen when you try to hand-pick the right “upset” (in this case, over Arizona — which didn’t happen) for a team that’s struggled for years.

Enjoy this weekend’s games!

Though I keep track, weekly, of my game-by-game picks from my annual “Picking the Winners” Pac-12 preview (which has appeared annually on USCFootball.com for the past decade or so), it’s been a few years since I offered readers a regular recap and progress report. To rectify that, I’ll be providing three updates this season — this one, recapping the month of September; a second that will take a look at October outcomes; and, finally, a post-season, pre-bowl overview. If you missed my picks in the feature story, here’s the link:

15th Annual ‘Picking the Winners’ Pac-12 Preview

I finished the first month with a solid 32-9 mark. Only two completely inexplicable non-conference upsets and last weekend’s stunning Utah rout of Oregon in Eugene — an outcome nobody saw coming — kept me from a fantastic start. Let’s see how things shook out — my best picks, my worst picks, and how my pre-season expectations for each team compare with the current reality.

Week 1

Best Picks

• Utah over Michigan (picked 24-20; actual 24-17)
• UCLA over Virginia (picked 38-14; actual 34-16)
• Oregon over Eastern Washington (picked 46-24 [22-point margin]; actual 61-42 [19-point margin])

Worst Picks

• Washington State over Portland State, 45-13 (actual: FCS-level PSU 24, Washington State 17)
  
• Stanford over Northwestern, 31-20 (actual: Northwestern 16, Stanford 6)
• Colorado over Hawaii, 35-24 (actual: Hawaii 28, Colorado 20)
  

Let’s talk about the worst picks here. I mean, wow — it’s embarrassing enough that Washington State has a team like Portland State on its schedule, but scrambling for a fourth-quarter tie before losing in the closing moments at home? The loss dwarfs the other two disappointments.

Stanford embarrassed itself in Evanston, Ill., against Northwestern. The Cardinal’s (premature) 2015 obituary was written many times over in the week following this loss. And while Colorado‘s defeat here was probably the least shocking of the three, anyone who stayed up late enough on the season’s first Thursday night to watch even the first half of this game knows just what a frightful performance this was by both the Buffaloes and the Warriors.

Week 2

Best Picks

• Michigan State over Oregon (picked 38-34; actual 31-28)
  
• Utah over Utah State (picked 20-14; actual 24-14)
• Michigan over Oregon State (picked 35-7; actual 31-10)
  
• UCLA over UNLV (picked 37-7; actual 37-3)
• USC over Idaho (picked 56-7; actual 59-9)

Worst Pick

• Rutgers over Washington State 34-28 (actual: Washington State 37, Rutgers 34)
  

In easily my most solid week of September, even my worst pick — aforementioned Washington State, which bounced back from the embarrassment against Portland State to go on the road and beat a troubled Rutgers team they’d lost to in Seattle last season — was close to on the money. You could even make a case that my worst pick was a 51-21 predicted blowout by Arizona State over FCS Cal Poly — in a game that was deadlocked at 21 into the fourth quarter before the Sun Devils scored two late TDs.

On the other hand, those best picks are all something to behold. Perhaps the most difficult thing to do in picking games like this is coming close to the actual scores in should-be blowouts. So, those scores in the Michigan, UCLA, and USC victories are all rather pleasing.

Week 3

Best Picks

• Washington over Utah State (picked 27-16; actual 31-17)
  
• Arizona State over New Mexico (picked 43-19 [24-point margin]; actual 34-10 [24-point margin])
• Washington State over Wyoming (picked 31-14 [17-point margin]; actual 41-23 [18-point margin])

Worst Picks

• USC over Stanford, 24-20 (actual: Stanford 41, USC 31)
• Texas over California, 38-37 (actual: California 45, Texas 44)

Interestingly, one of my worst picks also was one of my best picks. In a shootout in Austin, I took Texas to win a one-point nail biter. Really, in a shootout in Austin, Cal won a one-point nail biter when the Longhorns missed a late PAT that likely would have spelled overtime.

Remember Stanford’s obituary? Neither did they, as they simply wore down USC in the second half at the Coliseum. This matchup has been up, down, and all around in recent seasons — and with a number of close margins, it’s often anybody’s guess as to which team will come out on top. After the Cardinal’s early misstep at Northwestern, not many gave them a chance against the Trojans. Many were wrong.

Week 4

Best Pick

• California over Washington (picked 39-28; actual 30-24)

Worst Picks

• Arizona over UCLA, 27-20 (actual: UCLA 56, Arizona 30)
  
• Arizona State over USC, 35-28 (actual: USC 42, Arizona State 14)
  
• Oregon over Utah, 48-20 (actual: Utah 62, Oregon 20)

I mean, you see those worst pick scores. Whew. At best, before the season, I’d have said UCLA and USC, with the right breaks, could win close ones in the desert  — while it would take a lot of breaks for Utah to pull a last-minute upset in Eugene. So much for those ideas. It looks like the Ducks might be going through an “end of the mystique” season, much like USC did in 2009 — Oregon’s offensive injuries and troubled defense don’t remind anyone of its recent dominant squads. In the meantime, it’s clear that the Pac-12 South is staking its claim as the conference’s best division.

September Expectations vs. Reality

With nine incorrect picks, including four in Pac-12 conference games, there’s some shakeup when looking at my expectations for each squad vs. the reality. Let’s start from the Pacific Northwest and head down the coast before curling back inland.

• Washington (picked 2-2, 0-1 in Pac-12; reality 2-2, 0-1 in Pac-12): One of two teams in the conference for which I’ve picked the right outcome each week.
• Washington State (picked 2-1; reality 2-1): Same record, two miscues that were both covered earlier — the loss to Portland State and the victory at Rutgers.
• Oregon State (picked 2-2, 0-1 in Pac-12; reality 2-2, 0-1 in Pac-12): The other team in the conference that I’ve nailed all four picks for this far.
• Oregon (picked 3-1, 1-0 in Pac-12; reality 2-2, 0-1 in Pac-12): So far, I’ve only gotten that Utah pick incorrect — but the way the Ducks are playing, quite a few more miscues could be on the way.
• California (picked 3-1, 1-0 in Pac-12; reality 4-0, 1-0 in Pac-12): That Texas win not only foiled my pick, but also should make Cal’s bowl eligibility a cinch.
• Stanford (picked 3-1, 1-1 in Pac-12; reality 3-1, 2-0 in Pac-12): The Cardinal went from written off to the class of the North — in a three-week span. The Northwestern outcome is the one that really stings me, though.
• UCLA (picked 3-1, 0-1 in Pac-12; reality 4-0, 1-0 in Pac-12): Not only did the Bruins’ win at Arizona place them aside Utah atop the early race in the South, it also wrecked my perfect record with them.
• USC (picked 3-1, 1-1 in Pac-12; reality 3-1, 1-1 in Pac-12): Looks good, right? I mean, as a Trojan, I’ll take it (after that Stanford performance). But, purely from a selection standpoint, the Jekyll-and-Hyde aspect of this team in recent years continues unabated, leaving me with a 2-2 mark.
• Arizona State (picked 3-1, 1-0 in Pac-12; reality 2-2, 0-1 in Pac-12): I wasn’t buying the Sun Devils in that opener against Texas A&M in Houston, but I did think they’d be better than Arizona this season. After falling on their faces against USC last week, it’s anyone’s guess.
• Arizona (picked 4-0, 1-0 in Pac-12; reality 3-1, 0-1 in Pac-12): That UCLA destruction — my lone miscue — plus injuries to Anu Solomon and Scooby Wright seem to have the Wildcats season hanging in the balance during the next few weeks.
• Utah (picked 3-1, 0-1 in Pac-12; reality 4-0, 1-0 in Pac-12): After performing to standard in the season’s opening weeks — grinding out home wins with defense and just enough offense against Michigan and Utah State — the Utes have exploded on the national scene. Are they this good? Is Oregon that bad? We will find out.
• Colorado (picked 4-0; reality 3-1): That loss to Hawaii stings me — and it really stings Colorado’s bowl hopes, unless they get upset happy during their upcoming conference schedule.

Enjoy this weekend’s games!