Bruce Feldman's Take on the Pac-10

MONDAY
Came across this article today from Bruce Feldman, ESPN's Senior Writer, on the Pac-10's big weekend.

I am a huge Bruce Feldman fan. His writing always makes sense and is well thought out. I have been reading his stuff forever. He is one of the very few at ESPN that really knows what is going on in the Pac-10. The guy lives in Los Angeles and is very well connected.

Here are a couple excerpts re. Stanford I believe you will enjoy . . . . .

"I expected Oregon to be good this year. I didn't expect the Wildcats or the Cardinal to look like legit top-15 teams, but they do.

In the offseason, I spoke to one of the Pac-10's head coaches, who predicted the Cardinal would flop this season. He told me Stanford had lost too much of its identity when bruising RB Toby Gerhart left for the NFL. The coach praised QB Andrew Luck but didn't have much more to say about the Cardinal.

Luck is great. As I wrote earlier this week, I think he's the best bet to be an NFL star QB of anyone playing in college football now. Harbaugh has been gushing about his QB for years, and for all of Harbaugh's big talk, the guy really backs it up. But this team is a lot more than just a big-time quarterback.

At a time when many schools are running spread offenses, Harbaugh has focused on fielding a bruising, physical team. It seems he loads up on tight ends and fullbacks in the way other teams get misty-eyed over 5-foot-9, 160-pound scat backs these days. Harbaugh's mentality is blunt and often brutal. Up 68-24 in the game's final minutes, Harbaugh challenged a ruling on the field about a fumble. Stanford at that point had already scored more against Wake Forest than the Cardinal hoops team did in 15 games last season."