Linked Up: The Wild West of the Pac-12 South

You know the ending of "The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly" when Clint Eastwood and those two other dudes are in a crazy, three-way face-off? That's essentially what we're watching here in the Pac-12 South. There's no runaways, little sense can be made of it despite some teams only being a game into the conference schedule and the potential for the craziest of crazy endings to the year is pretty dad gum high.

So in our first post and first day under the SB Nation United redesign, we're highlighting some of the best thoughts from around network. You know, because we're united.

So how about it? What's the deal with the Pac-12 South, which, by the way, is led by the ASU Sun Devils and Colorado Buffaloes (What world are we living in?).

The Buffs bowl through Wazzu

AND COLORADO LEADS THE PAC-12 SOUTH MAYBE A DIVISION TITLE AND A DATE WITH OREGON IS ON THE HORIz .... no, no it's not. "Bowl through" is a strong phrase. They gritted out a game that the Cougars sort of handed to them. But, hey, a win's a win. From Jon Woods at The Ralphie Report:

If there's anything you can say about today's 35-34 win in Pullman to the Washington State Cougars it's that Colorado looked like a football team again.

That's good because, you know, the Pac-12 payed them to join the conference as a football team.

Utah takes a look at itself in the mirror

The Utes looked silly against ASU. The Sun Devils were faster, stronger and simply better. That all has JazzyUte questioning the overall talent of Utah, which is still only a year into seeing the talent gap of the Pac-12.

We are good as a Mountain West team, but how does good transfer over into this conference? While Utah has had one full recruiting class under their belt as a Pac-12 member, most the talent on this year's team was still recruited when the Utes were a non-BCS member.

...

Which means we might have to start using the dreaded R word ... rebuilding.

Rebuilding does indeed suck, and we feel you here Utes fans. Speaking of, we're actually avoiding that word so far this year. Well done RichRod.

ASU's game is the most important of the year, except for the one after that which will then be the most important game of the year

The Sun Devils have the opportunity to take the lead in the Pac-12. No, Colorado isn't going to win this week. As such, they've got to take advantage of every game. From Brad Denny at House of Sparky.

... they must win "the most important game of the year" this Saturday against Cal.

Why the quotes? Because Saturday's match-up in Berkeley will surely be the first of many such games given that title, and rightly so. That's just the nature of a football season for a contending team. Such is the case this week for the Sun Devils.

The great part about ASU's success is that Arizona can again play spoiler in the Duel. The bad part is that Arizona's success might make the Wildcats spoiler-fodder.

Bruins Nation freaks out

The guys over at Bruins Nation are suddenly jumping overboard the confidence boat (which might just be a UCLA thing) after the loss to the Beavers. Asked for an initial reaction, one fressia39 summed it up with perhaps a bit of an overreaction, though we take these things for what they are from who they are (overreacting Bruins fans). Was it really that bad, or did UCLA lose to a better team?

That sucked. Why do UCLA sports suck me in, get me all hopeful, and then dump me on the side of the street? I really want to see what happens next week.

Other Bruins Nation bloggers had more in-depth ways of saying something to this tune, but to have so many Rick Neuheisel references in the above linked post seemed a bit too knee-jerky after one loss.

What do you think?