And still, we’re only above the Washington schools in the final standings? That means that Stanford will be above us. Someone explain how we are predicted so low in the standings when there has been such obvious improvement? The other teams have improved just as much? I don’t think so.

I think we belong under the Sun Devils as a prediction. That’s my personal opinion.

I’ll gladly take 7 wins for this season. I’m personally keeping my expectations at 6 wins and a low-tier bowl. 2010 should be our big year.

Someone needs to let the people over at Conquest Chronicles know that Taylor Mays has closer to 0% chance of winning the Heisman than even a 1% chance. The biggest detriment to his non-existent Heisman campaign begins with the fact that he doesn’t return kicks. If he did, he would still have to be one of the most dynamic special teams players in the country, which is impossible to determine without actually returning punts and kickoffs in games. Then he has to compete against Tebow, McCoy, Bradford, Best, etc. and have a demonstrably better season than all of them. Given that all of these players are returning after incredible seasons last year, it is more likely that they repeat or increase their Heisman-worthy numbers than Taylor Mays having one of the best statistical years of any primarily defensive player in the history of the game.

I imagine the moderators of that site have not yet visited heismanpundit.com for a complete and statistically accurate breakdown of how the Heisman is won. I would even consider McKnight, Johnson, and Williams better Heisman prospects than Mays. He is just not in a position to make up ground with Heisman voters, who traditionally vote for offensive players or multi-dimensional athletes that play offense, defense, and special teams. Lest we forget that Charles Woodson, in addition to returning punts (for a touchdown against Ohio State to play for the NC), played wide receiver (catching two TDs), and had 8 interceptions (including a one handed leaping grab on the sideline, which may be the single most impressive pick in the history of college football). Taylor Mays has a lot of work to do to replicate a season even remotely close to that.

. . . for UCLA but Cougar and Husky fans have the Bruins in their list of “possible” wins, kind of like how many Bruin fans have listed Oregon, Cal, and Zona on the road.

had better be locks, or we aren’t going to be better this year. However, I can’t think of any area where we’d possibly be worse off than 2008. Our team is better, and our schedule is easier. We get Cal and Oregon at home.

I really think we’re going to see some surprises this year for UCLA and the PAC-10 in general. My guess is that OSU will have a significant drop off and possibly Oregon too. This will leave teams like UCLA, Stanford, or Arizona to fill in the vacuum.

If Oregon loses Masoli or Blount to injury, they will be in big trouble. The same goes for Cal and Best who is already nursing an injury and had off season surgery on his foot. The only player at UCLA who I think is at the same level of indispensability is Brian Price, but he’s never shown any sort of proclivity for injury. If we lose him though, I think teams like Stanford and Oregon will be able to run up the middle all day against us. Of course we have other great starters I’d hate to lose, but in most positions we have some depth and could replace them.