RedOscar

Rivals and Yahoo! Sports came out this morning with their predictions for their postseason bowls. While the Pac-12 (miraculously) managed to fill all seven bowl slots, Stanford and Pac-12 fans should temper their enthusiasm. The SEC, Big Ten, and Big 12 managed to get at-large bids in the BCS along with Boise State. This means they predict the second place finisher (Stanford) to end up in the Alamo Bowl, playing a reloading Texas team. I don't know what's more ridiculous -- the Pac-12 only getting one BCS bid, Stanford in the Alamo bowl, Texas getting the first non-BCS bid from the Big 12, or Virginia Tech, Auburn, and USC all landing ahead of Stanford in the first Sagarin ratings of the season.

The Stanford Women's Soccer team has been ranked second in the nation behind reigning national champion Notre Dame, who defeated the Cardinal 1-0 in last year's final game, in the first soccer poll of the season. Stanford is returning a veteran squad that has gone to the Women's Soccer College Cup the past two years, but senior forward Christen Press, the 2010 national player of the year, has graduated. Joining Stanford from the Pac-12 are UCLA (16), Oregon State (19), Washington (20), and USC (25). Stanford will face those teams as well as WCC powerhouses Portland (7) and Santa Clara (15) in addition to Maryland (6), Georgetown (23), and Notre Dame in non-conference play, making Stanford's only non-ranked opponents the remaining Pac-12 schools, Pacific, Northwestern, and Penn State (who is the first non-ranked team to receive votes). As a side note, if you're in the Bay Area, I highly suggest you check out Pac-1012 Plaza and Maloney Field. You might see some dramatic changes that happened during the summer.

Yahoo! Sport's Matt Hinton, Doc Saturday as he's sometimes referred to, predicted a Stanford Pac-12 Championship, bucking some of his fellow writers over at Yahoo! What's cool about it is that he also predicts All-American honors for Jonathan Martin, David DeCastro, Coby Fleener, and Shayne Skov as well as Coach of the Year honors for Coach Shaw (basically imagine Oregon's 2009 season successes and swap it out for Stanford). As part of Pac-12 week, he also predicts an 11-1 record and that this will be the final chance for Stanford to reach the National Championship for a loooong time, using numerical data (granted subjective) to back up his claims.

The USA Today/Coaches poll has been released and Stanford comes in at No. 6, behind Florida State (by 15 points) and ahead of Boise State (by 36 points). Oregon is the only other Pac-12 team in the Top 25, debuting at No. 3. Stanford's only other opponent in the Top 25 is No. 18 Notre Dame. USC, like last year, is ineligible for the Coaches Poll.

The NFL preseason games haven't even started and already fans are trying their best to gauge what their teams can do to ensure the worst record in the NFL for Luck (ahem, Denver).

Just a reminder that the Bank of the West Classic is happening on campus this week at Taube Tennis Center and other tennis courts around campus. In many years the players that attend are generally unknown to American audiences, but quality tennis is still played. This year, fans will have the opportunity to see a combination of good tennis and household names with Maria Sharapova, Marion Bartoli, Serena Williams, and No. 4 Victoria Azarenka competing for the $111,000 purse. There even exists the possibility of a Sharapova-Williams quarterfinal match (PDF). In all, eight of the top 20 women's tennis players will be at Stanford this week.

Maybe this is why he got the contract extension! Dawkins figured out the key to winning!