Memorialized by his “the band is on the field!” call of the 1982 Big Game, Cal football radio broadcaster Joe Starkey will call his 500^th Cal football game on Saturday when the Golden Bears play Oregon. Cal SID Jonathan Okanes gives us a really good feature story on Starkey in the preceding link.

Check out the Pac-12 Networks recap of second-ranked Stanford women’s volleyball’s 3-0 sweep of No. 18 UCLA Wednesday night on The Farm in large thanks to the 17 kills of Kathryn Plummer (she also hit .435, which is deserving of multiple flame emojis).

Thuc Nhi Nguyen reports that UCLA men’s basketball forward Alex Olesinski will be out two to three months with a stress fracture in his right foot. Olesinski played in all 33 games last season but had to miss the 2016-17 campaign as a result of a stress reaction in the other foot.

Well it was fun while it lasted – Arizona State football CEO Herm Edwards is ending the Sun Devils’ sideline “turnover curls.” Cool for the fans to see the guys pump some iron after creating a turnover, maybe not as cool to see for the coaching staff.

J. Brady McCollough of the Los Angeles Times provides us with this very good feature story of USC running back Vavae Malepeai, who comes from a family of Oregon Ducks (three of his uncles played their college football in Eugene) and nearly played for the Ducks himself (he committed to Oregon). You’ll also learn about the bond he has with his autistic younger brother, his relationship with his father, who is currently in prison, and other nuggets, including that his high school quarterback was current UCF QB and Heisman candidate McKenzie Milton.

Theo Lawson lets us know that Washington State football coach Mike Leach has been a fan of Utah coach Kyle Whittingham for quite some time. Hopefully they’ll get a chance to catch up a bit this weekend when their teams meet up for a Saturday afternoon showdown in Pullman.

John Canzano spoke with Oregon State football coach Jonathan Smith on the Bald Faced Truth radio show on Wednesday afternoon, and you can read some of his comments and listen to the full interview in the link.

Pat Rooney details the history of wild games Colorado and UCLA have played since the Buffs joined the Pac-12 (most of them going the Bruins’ way). The Buffs and Bruins do battle again Friday night at Folsom Field in Boulder.

Lauren Kirschman of The News Tribune features Washington running back Kamari Pleasant, a redshirt sophomore who has been doing some solid work out of the limelight for the Huskies on offense and special teams.

Michael Lev of the Arizona Daily Star takes another deep dive into some Arizona football stats, this time looking at how Arizona’s lack of turnovers affects the rest of the team.

Kurt Kragthorpe gives us an overview of the state of the Utah men’s basketball program as the Runnin’ Utes begin official practice Thursday.

KVAL in Eugene gives us this video feature on former Oregon soccer broadcaster John Strong, a guy you may know better as FOX’s lead play-by-play guy for the 2018 FIFA World Cup.