The Pac-12?
Posted on 11. Feb, 2010 at 4:25 pm by Kinger in Oregon Ducks Football, PAC-10 Football
It’s yet another off season in college football, which in the Northwest means three things.
1. The Huskies are BACK!!!
2. Oregon reminding the Huskies that Don James skulked away into the night back in 1993, and the Huskies STILL haven’t been back.
3. Pac-10 expansion.
What seems like a broken record–expansion into a “super-conference”–is, but this time it appears to have legs.
At long last, the fossil that was Pac-10 commissioner, Tom Hansen, has retired and been replaced by a guy that actually ‘gets it’, Larry Scott.
And this week Mr. Scott has made it clear that the Pac-10 is falling behind in the arms race that is college football, and will be aggressively trying to close the gap. The easiest way to close the gap? Expansion.
When this topic creeps up every year, we get the same list of contenders:
Boise State
Utah
BYU
Colorado
Fresno State
UNLV
Naturally on the heels of recent success, most think BSU is a no-brainer. And it kind of is….As in they have NO SHOT. Sure their football team would fit in the Pac10, but that’s about it. After all, the Pac is the “conference of champions” where we care almost as much about women’s water polo as we do about football and basketball (gotta love the left coast ) and frankly, BSU doesn’t stack up anywhere but football and wrestling (where there are only 4 Pac10 teams that actually field a squad) and are light years away academically from having any of the California schools, UO or UW letting them in.
In order to fit in academically, one must have a wide breadth of Ph. D programs, a Law program or a Medical school. The only Pac-10 school that doesn’t fit in that mold currently, is OSU, and the only school not labeled as a tier-one University. Sorry Boise, get back to us in 2040…
Fresno State, yikes…. Next choice.
UNLV has plenty of tradition in basketball, be that it is tainted, and zero in football (unless being Randall Cunningham’s Alma Mater counts?) and is kind of a joke academically. Though, the Las Vegas TV market (42) is fairly intriguing, and probably their biggest pull.
Here is where it gets interesting, with BYU, Utah and Colorado.
BYU and Utah are natural rivals (which is huge in the Pac) and good in football, basketball, and the other Oympic sports. Though one wonders if to get the Salt Lake City market (33), snagging both squads is really necessary. I would think not.
Utah fits almost perfectly, while BYU does present some challenges. BYU is not a research institute (all 10 current Pac schools are) and refuse to play games on Sundays. Which poses a very small problem for basketball, but a plethora for the non-revenue Olympic sports. Not to mention the fact that BYU is a secular institute poses more problems than most are comfortable to really acknowledge.
Head-to-head with BYU, Utah ‘wins’ hands down. Their academic profile is a better fit, well-rounded in sports, aren’t Mormon and located within the nice market that is Salt Lake City.
Lastly, the Buffs. Aside from being in the middle of a giant, frigid mountain range and sucking in football and basketball, they fit perfectly…. An extremely liberal campus with professors wearing nothing but tweed jackets, hating America and a gold mine of a TV market (18) sounds like a perfect match for the Pac-10! In all honesty, CU ‘fits’ better in the Pac-10 than the Big 12, in every way. Colorado is an elite public university, with a well-rounded sports program (cross country national champs) so I guess they work.
Utah and Colorado, your newest members of the Pac-10. Get ready for a championship game played in Phoenix, in front of 22,000 people, hoo ray!
Actually, it will probably never happen, until next year. Unless it doesn’t…
brewSKI
11. Feb, 2010
There are bigger issues to address than expansion. How about we deal with the middle school refs that they are running out there to do these pac10 games. I’ve never seen such bad officiating.
Mick
12. Feb, 2010
Good post all around homie. CU’s athletic department is a joke. Laughing stock of the Big 12. I hope that they will go to the Pac-10 because we NEED Big D1 baseball back here in Colorado (Air Force is solid, UNC is a joke). There are aroun 10 men who want to donate enough dime to make a done stadium in Boulder for baseball, but those liberal fucks in Boulder are not liking it at all.
One small note Kinger. Yes, the faculty at CU is VERY liberal, but the board, president, and chancellor are conservative. Makes for some GREAT op-ed pieces in the local papers….
I would love to see Utah and BYU join the Pac-10 as well….
Befaw
12. Feb, 2010
As much as it would delight me (as a fan of BSU football) to see BSU join the PAC-10, it really wouldn’t be a good fit. Utah, CU and BYU each have a better all-around case than BSU. From a football perspective, PAC-10 expansion would be great, but the difficulty is finding the right fit for everything else.
On a side note, wouldn’t it be sweet if the MWC, WAC and PAC-10 re-aligned for just football? I’ve got to believe that there are enough good football programs west of the Rockies to justify 2 10-12 team AQ conferences. (this is purely fantasy and will never happen, but it would be sweet).
bbryan
12. Feb, 2010
Utah is a shoe-in, they would fit in just fine. BYU is a religious school so the pac-10 would have to lift their ban of religious schools to let them in. Colorado would be a nice score for the pac-10, but what does the pac-10 have to offer that is better than the Big-12? BSU has no chance, once their run of good football is over they will go back to being as good of a choice as Western Oregon would be.
Personally I love the way the Pac-10 is setup with all the natural rivalries and round robin schedule. Unfortunately the times are changing and they really do need to add 2 more teams. It’s just damn hard to find a good 12th team.
3D
12. Feb, 2010
The round robin schedule is way too simplistic and makes too much sense for college football to implement. What a concept: play every team once. Play a balanced schedule.
OR…
The pac ten should take a page out of the SEC’s book. Let’s bring in shitty schools who would get trounced like Western Oregon and Western Washington. Both are public schools, both have football and basketball. This way the upper teams of the Pac 12 could also schedule 3 Division 8 teams in non-conference, win 77-3, trounce WWU and WOU by the same score, and have 5 auto wins. Then we can all start the year 5-0 and have 6 teams ranked in the top 15. It’s simple math.
Mick
12. Feb, 2010
1. There are pee-on teams in every conference (WSU, UW, etc.).
2. The SEC is not the only conference that pads its schedule. The Big 12, ACC, Big East, Big 10, and SEC pad their schedules. The Pac-10 schools chose NOT to do so. Stop playing the martyr card because your conference has 10 teams; it’s getting old homie.
3. Round-robin makes sense. Much tougher to do east of the continental divide because there are more D1 schools to try and fit into too few conferences. Money is lost on teams that don’t have a “winning” record.
4. The Pac-10 must get into a major market east of the continental divide, like Denver, if it ever hopes for respect. Denver channels cover all of Colorado and parts of the following states: New Mexico, Kansas, Nebraska, and Wyoming. 18th largest market….Only way to do that is to quit playing 70% of your games at night. Only way to do that is to get a national contract that includes more than USC & UCLA; drop that weak ass FoxSportsNet contract.
5. Somone other than USC has to win the Rose Bowl. Period. End of story. Perform on the national stage and respect will be earned. Get beat like a girl’s twat on prom night on the national stage and everyone east of the continental divide will continue to laugh at you when you tell us how “great” your conference is compared to the rest.
bbryan
12. Feb, 2010
Pac 10 is the only conference with a winning record against every other BSC conference since 2000. The simple fact is the media is located in the east coast, south east and mid east. The pac-10 will never get “respect”, we just have to settle for wins and championships.
Mick
12. Feb, 2010
Where did you get the stat that you just dropped? Just curious to see it.
Settling for wins in pac-10 in football is like saying you’re the toughest guy in your family. Then, when you roll to the bar or to school you get beat down in front of everyone.
Now, Pac-10 baseball has some legendary stats due to ASU and UofA. Jerry Kindall is arguably the best college coach ever; amazing person as well if you ever get a chance to hear him speak. Pat Murphy is the biggest dick ever (thank goodness he got fired) but he won a shit-ton of games. OSU won two national titles because they were legit.
ONCE AGAIN YOU WOULD GET PRESS IF YOU DIDN’T PLAY ALL OF YOUR GAMES ON FOXSPORTSNET.
Kinger
12. Feb, 2010
Lets be honest, the SEC is the best football conference in America. But not by nearly as much as SEC honk would like to think. The SEC always has two elite teams a year (but never anymore than that) and 8 other bowl eligible teams that look impressive on paper, but fail the eye test.
THe SEC plays their non-conference schedule brilliantly buy largely only scheduling tomato cans, corpses, girls academies and directionally schools. Ole Miss, South Carolina, Arkansas and Kentucky of late, all schedule nobodies, enter conference play 4-0, ranked, only needing to go 2 and 6 in conference to make a bowl. All SEC schools do this, and it’s brilliant. I mean it works, so why mess with it. Even if it is a chicken shit way to inflate your conferences number?
The myth of the SEC also carries a lot of weight. People would have you believe that LSU and Florida have been heavyweights forever – and it’s not the case. Florida has been good to great since Spurrier got there, and that is about it. UF has won only 8 league titles in their history (same number of Pac titles UO has) in fact, they never won a league title until 1991.
LSU as a tradition power is also a myth, only 5 league titles since 1970. But would the powers at CBS or ESPN every actually mention that, no way.
The time zone is the biggest thing going against the Pac10. For the Ducks games against SC and Zona, they were in Primetime, with Gameday at both locations, best games of the week. But….when the game kicks at 5:45 PST, folks on the East Coast are pre-funking for the bars, or getting ready to hit the sack.
Damn you time zones!
3D
12. Feb, 2010
King as the mediator and sane person is odd.
Kinger
13. Feb, 2010
D, I am the Tim Russert of the SportsBrewery…
MIck
13. Feb, 2010
I’m going to laugh my ass off when the pac-10 expands causing each team to pad games against WAC and Mountain West teams. What will you all have to cry about them? That the Mountain West is tougher than conference USA?
Time zones suck for you west coasters. They play in just perfectly for us Coloradans. I get college football from the time I roll out of the fart sack until the time I blackout in downtown Denver. Living the dream baby!
WAR CU leaving the Big 12 for Pac-10!
Kinger
13. Feb, 2010
Pac10 Non Conference opponents in 2009:
Zona:
Central Michigan
Northern Arizona
Iowa
ASU:
Idaho State
Louisiana Monroe
Georgia
Cal:
Maryland
Eastern Washington
Minnesota
Oregon:
Boise State
Purdue
Utah
Oregon State:
Portland State
UNLV
Cincinnati
Stanford:
Wake Forrest
San Jose State
Notre Dame
UCLA:
San Diego State
Tennessee
Kansas State
USC:
San Jose State
Ohio State
Notre Dame
Washington:
LSU
Idaho
Notre Dame
Wazzu:
Hawaii
SMU
Notre Dame
SEC in 2009:
Bama:
Va Tech
FIU
North Texas
Chattanooga
Arky:
Missouri State
Texas A&M
Eastern Michigan
Troy
Auburn:
La Tech
West Virginia
Ball State
Furman
Florida:
Charleston Southern
Troy
FIU
Florida State
Georgia:
Oklahoma State
Arizona State
Tennessee Tech
Georgia Tech
Kentucky:
Louisville
Miami (OH)
Louisiana Monroe
Eastern Kentucky
LSU:
Washington
Louisiana-Lafyette
Tulane
Louisiana Tech
Ole MIss:
Memphis
Southeastern Louisiana
UAB
Northern Arizona
Miss State:
Jackson State
Georgia Tech
Houston
Middle Tennessee
South Carolina:
NC State
Florida Atlantic
South Carolina State
Clemson
Tennessee:
Western Kentucky
UCLA
Ohio
Memphis
Vandy:
Western Kentucky
Rice
Army
Georgia Tech
Draw from that what you will.
*Yes, I would say that the likes of Boise State, TCU, Utah, BYU and Fresno State are at a different level of ‘schedule padding’ than anyone from Conference USA.