Defense has new stature in the Pac-10

The first hint that change had come to the Pacific-10 Conference was at the conference media day back in August.

Instead of coaches showing off their offensive players, trumpeting how many points they would score this year, the majority of the conference coaches brought along a defensive standout.

Now five games into the season, it is the defenses that are standing out for the top teams in the conference. Oregon State, Oregon and Arizona rank 1-2-3 in total defense. Oregon State, Oregon and Arizona rank 1-2-3 in the standings. Those teams are also sixth, 14th and 20th, respectively, in total defense nationally. Each allows less than 300 yards per game.

Oregon held UCLA to minus-9 yards rushing two weeks ago and Washington to 111 yards last week. The Ducks haven't allowed a touchdown in the first quarter this season despite playing three top- 10 teams in their first five games. "I think this is the best personnel Oregon has ever seen in this defense," defensive end Saul Patu said after the Ducks' 23-16 win over Washington. "All-around we're fast, all-around we're athletic. There's been great players here in the past, but overall we have a lot of great talent."

While Oregon State had trouble against lesser competition, the Beavers stepped it up in their first win over USC since 1967. They held running back Sultan McCullough to 33 yards. He had averaged 118 per game. For the year, the Beavers have allowed just two rushing touchdowns and an average of 1.8 yards per rush in four games.

"The biggest change with Oregon State is their defense," said USC coach Paul Hackett.

And Arizona has regained the form that gave it one of the most formidable defenses in the country in the 1990s. The Wildcats jumped all over Stanford quarterback Chris Lewis last week, sacking him three times and forcing two fumbles and two interceptions.

"That's the hardest I've ever been hit," Lewis said.

Stanford, with the best passing offense in the Pac-10, failed to score a touchdown. But that's nothing unusual for Wildcats opponents this year. The defense has allowed just one touchdown in the last four games.

And in a return to the Desert Swarm days, the defense has three of the Wildcats' nine touchdowns.

Two-year turnaround

Here are just a few of the things Dennis Erickson's Beavers have accomplished in his 21 months in Corvallis.

Ended a 34-year bowl drought. Ended a string of 28 losing seasons.

Ended a 26-game losing streak to USC.

Ended a string of 27 years of losing records in the Pac-10 or Pac- 8. A 4-0 record for the first time since 1957.

A Top 25 ranking for the first time in three decades. And with a win this week at Washington, the Beavers, the only undefeated team in the Pac-10, would move to 5-0 for the first time since 1939. "It's nice to be recognized," Erickson said, who has only one losing record in his 14 years of college coaching but no winning records in his four years with the NFL. "But all of this really doesn't mean anything until the end of the year. I haven't paid much attention to it. We've got one win in our league and seven more tough games to go."

Quarterback shuffle

Arizona State coach Bruce Snyder who has been doing more shuffling than a Las Vegas dealer, will have to make one more change this weekend. Senior quarterback Ryan Kealy tore his ACL Saturday and is done with football.

Backup Jeff Krohn has mono. So Griffin Goodman, a third-string, 24-year-old, walk-on will get the call against Cal.

Goodman played in the 38-31 loss to UCLA and for the year has 38 completions in 70 attempts for 451 yards and three touchdowns. "Grif has more zip on the ball than he did a year ago and he's more confident," Snyder said. "He's very smart and runs the play as you designed it. He has a good arm, not a great arm, and he's not a scrambler, but he manages the offense."

Pass the aspirin

Petros Papadakis is USC's most surehanded running back. So it was natural for USC coach Paul Hackett to stick him in the game with the score tied at 14 in the shadow of his own goal line. Papadakis fumbled, setting up Oregon State's go-ahead score. But it was Hackett who dropped the ball by putting him in the game in the first place. Papadakis had suffered a concussion earlier in the contest, but Hackett still played him.

Afterward, Papadakis said that was the wrong move: "I shouldn't have come back into the game."

Simonton's superlatives

Oregon State's Ken Simonton ran away with another Pac-10 player of week award with his career-high 234 yards rushing against USC. Simonton has 709 yards in four games for an average of 177 per game. That's the second-best average in the nation. The junior needs to average 195 yards over the remaining seven games to break the 2,000 mark. Simonton already owns the schools career rushing record with 3,223 yards. He has run for 100 yards or more in 16 games. That's also an OSU record. And he has 10 touchdowns this season and a Division-I best 15 points per game scoring average. In his OSU career Simonton has 256 points. Another record.

Now, all Washington, which allowed Oregon's Maurice Morris 152 yards, has to do is figure out a way to stop him.

"It's also a tall order for our defense in that Ken Simonton is right now probably the best running back in the conference," said UW coach Rick Neuheisel. "There are certainly a lot of good ones out there, but right now, all his numbers would lead you to believe that there is not a better one around."

News and notes

USC hasn't won a Pac-10 road game against a team with a winning record in Paul Hackett's three seasons ... Washington State's offense is averaging 31 points and 393 yards in the last three games. . . . Since Bruce Snyder left Cal to coach Arizona State in 1992, the Bears have lost all four of their games in Tempe, by an average 29.5 points. . . . Nine of Stanford's 10 touchdowns have come through the air, . . . Washington's opponents have missed four of their six field- goal attempts. . . . After starting 3-1, ASU plays four of its next five at home. ... WSU has converted 75 percent of its eight fourth- down attempts.

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