The ESPN Pac-12 blog got up close and personal with the Cougs nonconference opponents, Portland State, Rutgers, and Wyoming.
Rutgers return 10 starters from last year's team that defeated the Cougs 41-38 in Seattle and went on to finish 8-5, 3-5 Big Ten. The Scarlet Knights are the only nonconference foe of the Cougars to make it to a bowl game.
In this interesting piece about Rutgers by Bill Connelly, he discusses how Rutgers performed better than expected against teams of similar or worse skills. They then proceeded to lay eggs in their biggest games.