For the fifth-straight season, West Coast media members picked USC to finish football season in December as the Pacific-10 Conference champions.
The Oregon Ducks were picked to finish sixth.
In the poll conducted last Thursday at the Pac-10 media day in Los Angeles, USC became only the third team in the 46-year history of the poll to receive every first-place vote. According to the Pac-10, the poll has accurately predicted the conference champion 21 times in its history, including each of the last seven seasons.
California follows in second, the fourth-straight season the Bears have been predicted as runners up. UCLA, Arizona State, and Oregon State round out the top five.
The Ducks are picked sixth after finishing last season a disappointing 7-6, including four consecutive losses to end the year.
Picked behind Oregon are Arizona, Washington State, Washington, and Stanford. Perhaps luckily for the Ducks, three of those four games against lower competition are on the road this season, while four of the top five in the poll visit the always-tough Autzen Stadium.
Dixon returns as Bellotti looks ahead
The mid-summer media day is, along with Oregon’s own media day next Monday, a clear indicator that football season is nearing. For his own part, head coach Mike Bellotti has his mind set on September as well.
“Our focus right now is squarely on Houston,” Bellotti said at media day. “I think our team is hungry and ready to prove that they are a better football team than they showed at the end of last season.
“If anything, being picked sixth will only serve as added motivation.”
Bellotti also had words for Dennis Dixon, who returned to Eugene this past weekend. “The only upside I can see is that he learned that he really loved football and his teammates,” Bellotti said Thursday to reporters at the media day. “And maybe (Dixon) said, ‘Hey, I’m a really good football player – I might be a better football player than I am a baseball player.’”
Dixon returns after spending most of the summer playing baseball with the Atlanta Braves’ rookie-league teams in Florida and Virginia; he was picked in the fifth round of June’s MLB draft. Though Dixon enters camp at the top of the depth charts for the Ducks at quarterback (ahead of fellow senior Brady Leaf and sophomore Nathan Costa), he will have to prove himself to his coaches and his teammates – and do that after missing an offseason where he could focus on learning new offensive coordinator Chip Kelly’s playbook.
However, Bellotti does still have faith that, when his team steps into Autzen for the first time on Sept. 1, his quarterback will be ready.
“I expect him to be ready to go. I expect him to be excited about the opportunity to change people’s impressions from last year,” Bellotti said Thursday. “You have a certain backlog of experience and knowledge. I really expect him to be OK. Would it have been better to be here? Absolutely.”
Pac-10 preseason poll
1. USC (39) 390
2. California 323
3. UCLA 305
4. Arizona State 242
5. Oregon State 237
6. Oregon 226
7. Arizona 162
8. Washington State 115
9. Washington 98
10. Stanford 47