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USA Today has a couple of UCLA Football-related pieces, starting with Brett Hundley coming in 4th in the newspaper's preseason Heisman Trophy ranking. Paul Myerberg notes that Brett is the centerpiece of the Bruins 'under the radar' run and sets up the mid-October game v. Oregon at the Rose Bowl as massive for playoff implications as well as whether Hundley or Marcus Mariota becomes the Pac-12's Heisman standard-bearer.
4. QB Brett Hundley, UCLA
Hundley is the total package. He's also the centerpiece of UCLA's projected run at a spot in the College Football Playoff, an under-the-radar charge that should develop major momentum by midseason. In terms of importance to his team's efforts, Hundley is absolutely irreplaceable. But he does have to deal with Mariota in his own conference – and as great as both are, one is going to make noise at the expense of the other.
That story links to a short video detailing the Bruins as "The Team That Could Unseat Oregon" - I don't know how Stanford feels about that title, though the video does place Stanford with UCLA and Oregon as clearly the 3 best teams in the west and among the top 10-12 teams nationally.
Myerberg also puts Kyle Wittingham on the hot seat at Utah. That may seem a little bit of a surprise, but the Utes have taken a bit of a backslide since joining the Pac-12, not just through on the field results, but surprisingly also in the talent joining the program. He also posted another video praising Hundley as probably the most NFL-ready (or at least strongest pro prospect) QB in college football.
Michael Weinreb has written a post at Sports on Earth looking at whether more college teams will try to pull off the "Myles Jack Experiment" of playing key players on both sides of the ball this season, while lost in the World Cup excitement and news of JetSki's retirement is Chris Foster's report that Aaron Wallace has been readmitted and will be eligible to practice and play for the Bruins this fall.
Some good news for our conference-mates in Salt Lake City. Utah QB Travis Wilson has been medically cleared to continue his football career. He last played for the Utes last November against ASU; after leaving that game with a concussion, further tests found a pre-existing neurological condition which kept him off the field for the remainder of the 2013 season and threatened his career. Recent tests have determined that condition to be stable and not placing Wilson at higher risk if he continues to play. While not a great team, the Utes were certainly a better squad with him under center, and it would have been hard to see his career end early due to injury.