By the end of the first week of January, all 10 football teams of the Pacific-10 Conference had finished their seasons.
A month later, head coaches from Arizona to Southern California to the Palouse put bows on their respective recruiting classes.
April came and went, and with it the spring games that whetted fans’ appetites for the upcoming season.
And now, it’s almost August.
Football season is back – and with it, come the sport’s prognosticators and soothsayers. It’s not any different here, where two of the Emerald’s sports reporters will offer their own personal feelings and insights about half the conference’s teams.
Last year’s expectation-defying college football season proved that you shouldn’t count out anybody – ANYBODY, West Virginia.
And who knows: We might actually be right about some of these things.
1. USC: Barring some unforeseen catastrophe, USC will win the Pacific-10 Conference championship and possibly compete for the Bowl Championship Series national championship. The Trojans have everything necessary: explosive front seven, talented offensive line and depth that most NFL teams would envy.
If you consider USC’s potential openings for controversy “weaknesses,” then USC has some questions to answer before traveling to Virginia on August 30. The biggest one is at running back, where as many as five players could see significant snaps. Sophomore Joe McKnight is the most talented; he may be one of college football’s most complete running backs. At quarterback, Mark Sanchez had a successful trial run when John David Booty was injured last season, losing only to Oregon. Defensively, the Trojans figure to maintain a lofty national ranking (second in total defense in 2007) as seven starters return.
The Trojans’ schedule is tailor-made for a run at their third national championship in seven years. After Virginia, USC gets two weeks off before hosting Ohio State, with 12 days in between that game and its first Pac-10 contest, against Oregon State in Corvallis. Followed up by consecutive home games against Oregon and Arizona State, it is highly conceivable that, should the Trojans go 4-0 in that stretch, they will coast into the national title game.
2. Arizona State: Shouldn’t the Sun Devils be the in conference title race every year? A school of 40,000-plus in one of the most favorable climates should reap top recruiting classes. At least, it should have more than sporadic success.
But what head coach Dennis Erickson did last year on short notice, which was no less than leading them to a 10-3 season, was done by taking a team of underachievers and making it a winner. The rest of the conference hopes this giant doesn’t get used to it.
Quarterback Rudy Carpenter is on several award watch lists for the nation’s top quarterback, while defensive end Dexter Davis has made his own award-list appearance for the best player at his position.
While you’re at it on defense, feel free to gameplan around Troy Nolan. The safety has been nominated for the Bednarik, Lott and Thorpe awards, no small feat.
Questions remain, as always. How will the loss of three starters on the offensive line hamper running back Keegan Herring’s encore season?
Can the Sun Devils, like Carpenter on the sideline, harness their explosive energy and talent for another 10-win season?
The Sun Devils will play seven home games versus five away games this year, including a potential top-10 matchup against Georgia on Sept. 20. Its five away games aren’t anything to sleep on, however: Cal, USC, Oregon State, Washington and Arizona.
3. Oregon: Dennis Dixon, Jonathan Stewart and Geoff Schwartz are gone. The fan base has a bitter taste in its mouth from three straight losses to Arizona, UCLA and Oregon State before lambasting South Florida in the Sun Bowl on December 30. The Ducks finished 9-4 in 2007 but had a disappointing 5-4 conference record. What can possibly be expected for this coming year?
Good question. Only 13 starters return, and some position units (linebackers, defensive tackles) remain a mixed bag. The picture has come into better focus as the spring progressed, as Nathan Costa and Justin Roper are the pronounced favorites for the starting quarterback job, with Costa given the edge despite Roper’s performance in the Sun Bowl. But for all the quarterback controversy surrounding the Ducks, consider this: Oregon ranked 64th in Division I in passing offense last year and finished with 2,806 yards passing. Given the Ducks’ senior offensive line and a talented receiving corps, either Costa or Roper could throw for 3,000 yards and Oregon can maintain its dynamism on offense. In offensive coordinator Chip Kelly, Oregon trusts.
The defense has a chance to be better than the offense, but there are plenty of questions. While defensive ends Nick Reed and Will Tukuafu are set, the two defensive tackle spots are up for grabs. Junior-college transfer Justin Thompson will battle with Cole Linehan, Ra’Shon Harris and Tonio Celotto for the bulk of the DT minutes. Linebacker remains similarly crowded, but the Ducks may not have had this many talented linebackers vying for playing time this decade. Oregon’s secondary may be the best positional unit on the team, as Walter Thurmond III, Jairus Byrd and Patrick Chung are all extremely capable cover men.
Much has been made of the Ducks’ 2008 schedule, and with good reason – road games against Purdue, USC, Cal and Arizona State, and the Civil War on the road, compound the unpredictability. Oregon should realistically win every home game this year, but they could finish as well as 4-1 in those road games or as poorly as 2-3.
4. California: Head coach Jeff Tedford must be wondering the same thing after last season’s improbable tumble from top to bottom in the conference: Will the Bears find some mental toughness to go along with their talent?
Sure they beat Air Force in their bowl game last year, the team’s fifth postseason appearance in a row, but that came only after the team had lost six of its last seven games leading up to it (claiming its lone win against lowly Washington State).
Front and center when Bears camp opens Aug. 3 will be the team’s quarterback competition between incumbent Nate Longshore and Beaverton native Kevin Riley. Riley played reasonably well after costing the Bears a win and the No. 1 ranking against Oregon State, being named the MVP of the bowl game.
The Bears’ first four games – Michigan State, at Washington State, at Maryland and versus Colorado State – are all winnable, but don’t be surprised if a 2-2 record happens.
Should they enter their Oct. 4 game against Arizona State at home a perfect 4-0 with momentum to boot, the Bears might just win.
5. UCLA: If Oregon could be seen as inconsistent, then what are the Bruins? We won’t likely know until opening day who the quarterback is. This team returns only 10 starters from a squad that accounted for one of Notre Dame’s three victories last year. Three offensive linemen have departed, and the defense lost both starting safeties and pass-rushing terror Bruce Davis.
The fifth-place slotting of UCLA in the media poll seems highly irregular given the injury issues at quarterback and the overall loss of talent. It would appear that teams are banking on the Neuheisel factor for a couple Bruin wins. True, Slick Rick and new offensive coordinator Norm Chow are already a noticeable upgrade from the hapless Karl Dorrell, but talk of standing up to the bully across town seems premature. The Bruins ranked a paltry 99th in the nation in total offense last year and 101st in passing offense. It is not difficult to envision the Bruins repeating their 6-7 record from last year.
A brutal early schedule compounds UCLA’s troubles. A 2-2 start over Tennessee, BYU (away), Arizona and Fresno State would be fortuitous. From there, road games at Cal, Oregon and Arizona State build up to the home game that really isn’t, against USC on December 6. By that poin
t, USC will likely be in the top 3 in the nation and Pete Carroll will not have forgotten 2006.
6. Oregon State: They can’t do it again…can they? Picked sixth in the conference, the Beavers will probably do what’s become head coach Mike Riley’s signature style in the past few seasons: Start slow, finish fast. In the past two seasons, the Beavers have a 9-2 record once November begins.
And yes, Oregon fans, our state’s favorite school of agriculture knows how to turn out a fine football team, even without the rest of the conference paying it much attention.
Is it time to start believing in the Beavers full-time? With arguably the toughest first four games in the conference, experience says not to. Playing at Stanford and Penn State to start, with the following home games against Hawaii and Southern California, a 2-2 record should be almost a relief in Corvallis. Its schedule from November on, however, sets up another stretch run against much of the conference’s bottom half (excluding the Civil War).
Defensive end Victor Butler was named to the Hendricks defensive end of the year award list, but he’s basically the only defensive starter back from the Beavers’ front seven defenders, long a staple of their success.
That, and because I’m still not sold on quarterback Lyle Moevao, I have to believe the Beavers won’t finish in the top three again. Of course, at this time last season, I didn’t believe in Dennis Dixon, either.
7. Arizona: Head coach Mike Stoops was hired in 2004, and since then Arizona has not won a bowl game, primarily due to a lack of participation. Stoops is 17-29 in his tenure and has one of the hottest seats in college football.
Quarterback Willie Tuitama is now a senior, and he may be ready to break into the national conversation as a skilled quarterback with a fairly accurate arm. He’ll have the benefit of an offensive line that lost only one starter from 2007 and the services of Mike Thomas, considered among the best receivers in the Pac-10 despite a lack of name recognition. The play of the defense, which didn’t crack the top 40 in any major national statistical category last year and lost eight starters, will likely determine Stoops’ job security.
That said, the insinuation that the defense might not be ready for Pac-10 play has realistic backing: the Wildcats start their season against Idaho, Toledo and New Mexico before venturing to Los Angeles for a road match against offensively challenged UCLA. Arizona’s schedule is punishing, with home dates against Washington, USC, Cal, Arizona State and Oregon State and road games against Oregon and Stanford, who should be much improved. Stoops will likely have to fight off UCLA, Stanford and Washington State to escape the Pac-10 cellar and earn his coveted bowl bid.
8. Washington: Tyrone Willingham showed up to Pac-10 media day sporting a salt-and-pepper goatee.
If it was meant as a disguise for the beleaguered coach who hasn’t escaped criticism since he left Stanford, it didn’t work. He’ll still sit on the hottest of hot seats in the conference when he returns to Seattle, where his job is on the line.
If a coach can be graded on spots of brilliance, then he’d have one of the most secure jobs in the nation. Last season, superfrosh quarterback Jake Locker did everything short of blocking and running routes for the Huskies to win. Unlike his coach, Locker will have two years remaining if this season doesn’t go to plan. He is one of three sophomores on the Davey O’Brien award for best quarterback. After him, the guessing game begins as to the Huskies’ impact players.
Best-case scenario: The Huskies win five games this season – but it could very well be three. They’ll need more than just a home field advantage during their seven home games to get some wins, and save their coach’s job.
9. Stanford: Cardinal head coach and former Indianapolis Colts quarterback Jim Harbaugh has done wonders in changing the culture of the once-feared Stanford football team. A 4-8 record last year (3-9 Pac-10) and upset wins against USC and Cal leave the program on the upswing heading into this season.
USC game wunderkind Tavita Pritchard returns for his sophomore season without his top two targets, Mark Bradford and 6-foot-7 matchup nightmare Evan Moore, but with some competition in the form of Michigan transfer Jason Forcier and incoming freshman Andrew Luck. Stanford’s top three rushers also return. Nine defensive starters are back for 2008, led by amply coiffed safety Bo McNally.
A brutal road slate with Arizona State, Washington, Oregon and Cal in conference makes a high Pac-10 finish look very optimistic, but six wins is a distinct possibility for the up-and-coming Cardinal. A surprise against Oregon State on August 28 in Stanford Stadium would be the perfect catalyst.
10. Washington State: If all predictions hold out correctly, it’s going to be another lonely Apple Cup this season. Was it really a decade ago that these two teams had annual duels for the Pac-10 crown?
It was. And it might be just that long for the rivalry to return to conference significance. The Cougars’ newest head coach, Paul Wulff, coached previously at Eastern Washington in Cheney, 60 miles away from Pullman.
In other words, close enough to know what kind of a mess he inherited well before he took the job in mid-December. A 1990 WSU graduate himself, Wulff kept close tabs on his school, but he has to cringe when he realizes the Cougars will most likely decline at least a season before they get any better.
Of course, as last season exhibited to every underdog’s delight, expect the improbable, and guarantee nothing.
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Editor’s note: Profiles for USC, Oregon, UCLA, Arizona and Stanford were written by Robert Husseman. Profiles for Arizona State, California, Oregon State, Washington and Washington State were written by Andrew Greif. Numerical order was determined by the Pac-10 preseason media poll.