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Pac-10 Conference Preview |
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Written by Jason Macor
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Wednesday, 30 July 2008 |
 USC will win the Pac-10. Article over. What, you want more than that? Alright, fine, but honestly we both know you’ll just be getting that in the end. It’s not a well known secret that during the offseason I devour all college-football material I can get my hands on, and my all time favorite is Phil Steele’s College Football Preview. One thing I disagree with is his assessment of the Pac-10’s strength.
According to him they’re a strong conference because they play a round robin, giving them 9 conference games, and are the only conference to play all of their out of conference games against division 1 teams. Honestly going 3-3 against ranked out of conference opponents last year doesn’t say much to me. As for their 9 conference games going round robin, who are we kidding, half of those games might as well be against division 2 teams anyway. Take away USC and they’re 10-9 in bowl games in the last four years. That’s an average of 4-5 teams playing a year, and about half of them losing, not good numbers to have when trying to claim elite conference status.
To compare the true elites of conference, the SEC, was 19-11 in that span (and to be fair we’ll put USC back into the Pac-10’s number and make it 13-9). That’s an average of 7-8 teams a year, remembering last year one bowl eligible SEC team (South Carolina) didn’t go bowling because they ran out of spots to give, and a 64% winning percentage. In fact really only the SEC has been dominant. I have to concede in numbers, only really the Pac-10 can compare, again only because of USC. The rest of college football has been either really bad, or just more parity than we’re used to, I’m going with really bad.
Either way, it’d be a tough argument to prove to me that the Pac-10 is a great conference. I’d say it’s more of a top heavy conference with a couple of good teams in the middle, and then crap on down. I suppose it’s finally time to get to the actual predictions isn’t it? Alright we will go from the bottom up, just like the SEC. This one’s a bit tougher than the SEC because of the parity of mediocrity at the bottom of most other conferences.
First up is WASU. Washington State is really just a victim of bad scheduling. All of their winnable games are on the road, and all of their home games are really tough. It’ll be tough for them to find even one win much less enough to raise themselves out of the depths of the Pac-10. That would be the only reason I’m not picking Stanford to finish last, and thus Stanford will finish a spot above last, as they did last year. To further prove my point about the Pac-10, Stanford somehow got three conference victories last year....how? Either way they’ll go ahead and stay in the bottom half of the Pac-10 again.
With only 9 returning starter UCLA finds itself on near the bottom of the Pac-10 after consecutive 5-4 seasons in conference play. Similar schedule problems that WASU faces, UCLA looks at most of it’s winnable games being on the road. Scheduling gods aside, 9 returning starters is tough to battle even for the best teams, so this can be a pretty ugly year for UCLA.
Oregon St has only 10 returning starters, but does have a bit more experience than UCLA. Again, though, I really can’t see any team recovering from that much loss. Since they lost most of their defense expect even more high scoring games than is usual for the west coast. Their games will be fun to watch at least. Ahead of them could be Washington, Arizona St., and Arizona in no particular order.
Washington has QB Jake Locker, and with Willingham in his fourth season, with a ton of close calls over the years, I’m calling for a breakout year for the Huskies as they finally find their stride. Arizona has the least depth returning in the Pac-10, with only 17 letterman, but they benefit from 5 conference home games, and a good defense should help them stay just above .500 if they can win their out of conference games. Finally Arizona St, last years co-champions with USC, are the exact opposite, with 5 road conference games, and an out of conference game against Georgia, a sure loss in my book. They’re strong enough to finish above .500 though, and with a better schedule could have been back on top of the Pac-10.
Now, to shake things up a bit, a pick having nothing to do with schedule or underlying talent (though I do think this team is consistently overrated like Tennessee was last year, whoops). California, or Cal if you prefer, has five conference home games, could be ranked in the top 25, always has decent talent, but has a knack for being extremely disappointing (finishing 7-6 last year after opening up 6-0). They do good as underdogs, and since people are picking them pretty high this year, I’m gonna go ahead and predict another monumental collapse, relatively. On paper this team should finish at least second behind USC, but they won’t, and I’m even a bit nervous about picking them this high, but I will.
Oregon will have to prove itself on the road this year, but they play great defense, and besides USC, have the best chance of doing so. Enough returning starters, and tons of depth with 54 lettermen returning, Oregon only has to become road warriors to contend for a national title.
They won’t though, because USC will be, even though I don’t think they should be a national title contender, unless of course we could institute a playoff system...wishful thinking I know. They’ve done it six year running, they’ll make it seven...apparently a school record. Plus they benefit from a brilliant schedule with all the toughies at home, including the Oregon game, which is my pick for the Pac-10 game of the year, besides the offensive shootouts that Oregon St. must be gearing for. |
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 30 July 2008 )
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