Sun Devils vs. Hurricanes in '08?

The Miami Hurricanes need an opponent to line up against to open up their 2008 campaign. Why not have our Arizona State Sun Devils travel to Miami as the Hurricanes play their first home game at Pro Player Stadium? Right now, we are currently set to play Northern Arizona on August 30, 2008. Why not just give Northern Arizona whatever money they were going to get in television rights and go to Miami and get a huge payday from the Hurricanes? How big of a national story would it be if Dennis Erickson came back to Miami to face the team with which he won national championships in 1989 and 1991? Besides, the Hurricanes have always been gracious hosts:



If we went to Miami in week 1 of the 2008 season, our schedule would look like this:

Aug. 30 - @ Miami
Sept. 6 - Stanford
Sept. 13 - UNLV
Sept. 20 - Georgia
Oct. 4 - at California
Oct. 11 - at USC
Oct. 18 - Oregon
Nov. 1 - at Oregon State
Nov. 8 - at Washington
Nov. 15 - Washington State
Nov. 22 - UCLA
Nov. 29 - at Arizona

That would easily be the #1 toughest schedule in the nation, and we can make it a home and home series in 2009 by kicking Idaho State off the schedule. There is no reason to play these cupcake games early on in the season. I'm tired of seeing two home games early on in the season every year where we easily win by 30 points, and then lose once we play stiff competition, like against LSU and USC in 2005 after we had walked all over Temple and Northwestern in our first two games. This year, we have 3 cakewalks, with a depleted SJSU, a rebuilding Colorado and a team trying to find its identity in San Diego State. In 2008, we're most likely going to be a top program with Rudy Carpenter back for his senior season, a very experienced Keegan Herring and Shaun Dewitty in the backfield, and an established receiving corps of Michael Jones, Kyle Williams, Chris McGaha and Kerry Taylor, with T.J. Simpson beginning to establish himself. If Rudy stays for his senior season, we should be unstoppable on offense.

The cynic says, "What happens if we get pummeled in Miami?" I say, IT DOESN'T MATTER! The benefits outweigh the costs big time. Win or lose, going into a hostile environment like Miami is going to increase our chances of succeeding when we play Georgia at home and for the road games at Cal and USC. Let's follow up this season's 9 or 10 win campaign with an exciting opening game road trip to Miami!

The Stevin "Hedake" Smith Pac-10 Football Conference Standings

Here's how notorious ASU game fixer Stevin "Hedake Smith" would presumably see the Pac-10 shaking out. Even though this site does not support online sports gambling in accordance with the Federal Wire Act , we bring you the odds that BoDog.com has put on their website for winning the Pac-10 this year in football.

USC 1/3
Cal 3/1
UCLA 7/1
ASU and Oregon 12/1
Arizona 15/1
Oregon State 25/1
Washington 35/1
Washington State 40/1
Stanford 60/1

USC is the clearly the favorite, while Arizona State is at 12 to 1 odds to win the Pac-10. That's kind of ironic, because I'm pretty sure #12 (Rudy Carpenter) to #1 (Michael Jones) is going to be a pretty familiar combination this season. There is a disparity though between these odds and the Pac-10 media poll as far as Oregon State is concerned; they're given the 7th best odds of winning the conference while the Pac-10 coaches think they're going to finish 5th. Meanwhile, both offshore gambling firms and the majority of the Pac-10 media haven't gotten the message from Jim Harbaugh that Stanford is for real.

Pac-10 Baseball now has 10 teams, Oregon returns to competition in 2009

Oregon reinstates their baseball program, giving us an actual Pac-10. To make room for the baseball team in the budget, they are discontinuing the wrestling program, but adding a cheer squad. For all the information, go here.

This has to be the best time possible for Oregon to reinstate the program. Rival Oregon State just reeled off back to back College World Series championships while recruiting primarily out of the Northwest.