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Expanding the resume

It's not enough that Stanford's Andrew Luck leads one of the best teams in the country, as well as the race for the Heisman Trophy.

Now, he's calling his own plays.

Coach David Shaw has started allowing his cerebral senior quarterback to make his own decisions at the line of scrimmage, something Washington coach Steve Sarkisian described as a "lost art." Shaw said the Cardinal allowed Luck to do that a little bit against USC two years ago, but have had the strategy — borrowed from former NFL coach Jon Gruden — mostly on the shelf since then.

"It really helps him play the game faster," Shaw said. "We have one of the few quarterbacks in college football who can truly do it."

Big game of the week

The last time the Oregon Ducks played Cal, their high-flying offense ground to a virtual halt and they needed a punt return for a touchdown to escape the Bay Area with a sloppy 15-13 victory last season.

Now comes the rematch.

The Ducks have averaged 60.3 points and 600 yards since their opening loss to LSU, and will get a chance to show the Golden Bears that last year was a fluke when the teams meet in the first of three straight Thursday night Pac-12 games on ESPN. Running back LaMichael James ranks second nationally in rushing — he's also the nation's top punt returner — and will meet a Cal defense that ranks ninth against the run.

Even more intriguing?

Online rumors that the Ducks will debut another new jersey, this one with an image of Puddles on the shoulder. Now that is must-see TV.

Megatron in the making?

Coach Mike Stoops called USC's Robert Woods "one of the best receivers I've seen in a long time" — which is saying something, considering how many wideouts have carved up the Arizona defense this season.

But Woods is on pace to shred the Pac-12 Conference record book.

The 6-foot-1 sophomore receiver is leading the nation in receptions after making 14 catches for 255 yards against Wildcats last weekend — "he tore our zone up, man," Arizona's Shaquille Richardson marveled — to help pile up 55 catches for 747 yards and six touchdowns through five games, without dropping a single pass.

At that rate, Woods will finish with 132 catches and 1,793 yards and shatter the league's single-season league records. USC's Keyshawn Johnson caught 102 passes in 1995, while Oregon State's Mike Hass compiled 1,582 yards (in an 11-game schedule) in 2005.

'Shame' on ESPN

Coach Rick Neuheisel of UCLA wasn't shy about calling out ESPN, when asked about analyst Kirk Herbstreit's on-air assertion that the Pac-12 has fallen behind other elite leagues because USC isn't as powerful anymore.

"ESPN's power over who's hot and who's not is unusual," Neuheisel said. "I think they decide. And if they think that SC is the only sexy school out here, then shame on them, because there's a number of schools out here that are deserving of attention. They've become so powerful … they kind of create programs, and so forth."

Throwing up

Good thing Arizona and Oregon State kick off at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, because that game could take all day.

The Wildcats average 48 passes a game and rank last in the Pac-12 with 76.5 rushing yards per game, while the Beavers have averaged just 52.6 rushing yards since their opener and threw a school-record 66 times in a loss to Arizona State last weekend.