Subscribe Feed (RSS)I was impressed this morning on ESPN radio to hear that network’s Ivan Maisel say he thought the Pac-10 is on a par with the SEC this season. That helps Oregon a bit because I’m afraid Colin Cowherd is correct when he says that around the country, when people see USC lose a conference game, the first reaction is that, well, the Trojans are down a little.
It’s never that someone else in the conference is simply better.
That’s something the Ducks are trying to fight. I think the Trojans ARE down a little. But come on, Oregon is good. And if that conference is ever going to consistently get teams into the BCS title game that aren’t named USC, it’s going to take some national recognition of the strength of the Pac-10.
Tags: BCS, Dwight Jaynes, Oregon Ducks, USC Trojans
Whats with all the college football talk? I thought the Duck fans already told you that you don’t know anything about college football…. lol.
I live on the East Coast now and it’s easy to see the situation for what it is.
The SEC is clearly favored by the media — and its top teams are truly the best in the country. Maybe top to bottom, the SEC is stronger (WSU is terrible, for instance).
However, what ticks me off about the East Coast bias is the fact that other, inferior conferences, are given props when the PAC-10 is clearly better.
The PAC-10, top to bottom, is better than the Big-10 and Big East and Big 12 … I’m certain of this.
But, I believe people in the East will always have a certain disdain for the PAC-10 … probably the same way PAC-10 fans (which ever school they root for) thumb their noses at the WAC or MWC.
If I was in charge … just a side note to strengthen the conference … I’d trade Washington State for Boise State and add BYU, plus Utah and Colorado (or colorado state?).
A 14-team megaconference, with a North and South division (plus playoff) would be amazing.
However, I doubt Boise State would want to give up their cupcake schedule, including games against San Jose Community College, to play in the Pac-14.
14 teams is too much. Adding the Utah schools would be a good thing though. Not matter the religious affiliation.
Utah is a state school so they’d be fine, and they bring a solid basketball program as well as most of the other sports. The problem is who to partner with them, Utah State is too small time and BYU is out. Colorado is already in the Big 12, Colorado State is probably too small.
The Pac 10 is about more than football. Does Boise State even play half the sports Pac 10 schools do?
And even in football they’d need a major stadium upgrade.
I can just imagine Boise State’s basketball team playing against UCLA … yeah, they’re not ready for the PAC-10 … I take it all back
There has been talk (just talk) about adding two teams to the Pac-10. I’ve heard a handful of variations: Colorado and BYU. Then, I hear Boise State and Fresno State! I personally don’t recall the variation with Utah, but by the same token, I’ve heard TEXAS a long time ago (since scrapped, since Texas entered the Big 12). Doesn’t the Big East have an ungodly number of teams? If we become the Pac-12, we’ll definitely need a North/South division, and a league championship game (which people either love or hate).
Colin is right when he says if the Ducks would have scheduled a cupcake like Florida did instead of going on the road @ Boise State to begin the season, The DUCKS would be #1 in the country today!
Let’s keep it real. The Ducks are a flawed football club like USC. Could lose two more games. Stanford, Beavers, or ASU.
—->DMW you are clearly a fan of losing team.. either your East coast team has not lived up to the hype or your pac 10 team got beat USC or Oregon. Either way stop being a hater and take a seat with trojans or ducks because from the sound of it, its the only way your going to a get out of that toliet bowl your team is headed for!
Yeah, the Ducks aren’t perfect but no team is. Oregon may have flaws but they still are playing better than ANY OTHER TEAM in the country right now. Yeah, it took the Ducks a couple games in the beginning of the season to get things going but no other team is playing at their level now.
I really hope that Utah beats TCU because that would help Oregon two ways. TCU would have a loss and Utah would look that much better.
that would be a huge upset.
I don’t think so. The only way that happens is if Masolli goes down in a simailar way Dennis Dixon went down two years ago.
Yeah they certainly looked flawed on Saturday!!!!!
Where are the flaws DMW? Looks to me like a stout defense, a great offense and amazing special teams. Seems like the Ducks are strong all over the field.
The difference between the two conferences is one conference plays smash mouth football and one doesn’t or hasn’t. I think that’s about to change. Pete Carroll and the USC Trojans can take credit for this too. The teams in the SEC, I feel have been more complete, offensively and even more so defensively and with special teams. It wasn’t until Pete Carroll showed up that USC could say that same thing. Now that some of Carroll’s assistants is starting to spread their own wings inside the conference. It won’t be long before we have another school besides SC that is considered a complete team. The other bit of good news is, Oregon’s Chip Kelly get’s this. The adjustments he made to Alliotti’s defense is just one area that he showed he understands this. And that’s great news. You have to be able to win with not only your offense but your defense and special teams. I just think USC’s Pete Carroll, Oregon’s Chip Kelly, Washington’s Steve Sarkisian and Arizona’s Mike Stoops are about to transform this conference into something more than just a conference full of offensive juggernauts. And I think these coaches get that.
JD,
Go back a little longer. The Washington Teams that competed for National titles under Don James played even tougher D than USC does now. Arizona used to be known for D, they just never had any offense to go with it.
Things go in cycles, the last 10 years or so have been offense heavy in the Pac 10 is all.
I hate this constant talk about “smash mouth” SEC football. The Pac 10 has almost the exact amount of players drafted each year as the SEC when you look at it from an avg players per team angle since the SEC has more schools.
Give me the name of one SEC team outside of Florida this year that has the offensive firepower of Oregon, or Oregon State, or Arizona? Just one.
Give me the name of an SEC QB that has the overall passing skill set of Barkley, Luck, Canfield (yes, as a Duck fan, I am actually listing Canfield here), or Locker? All those guys will get drafted in the NFL. Do you know who leads the SEC in passing offense? Ryan Mallett?!?!?!?!?
The only one that you can even make an argument for is Florida and that is still dicey.
It’s not a question about offensive power. It’s about being a “COMPLETE” team and winning that way. How many teams in the pac 10 other than the mighty trojans can claim they won as a complete unit in the last ten years?
You’re defining “complete unit” by indicating that SEC teams are somehow complete. I am arguing that their defenses only look unstoppable playing against bad SEC offenses. I am arguing that they are not complete either. They might have better defenses overall, but their offenses are tragic.
Look at what BSU did to Alabama. Look at what USC constantly does to SEC teams. The SEC out of conference schedules are appalling 95% of the time and when they actually play a high powered offense, they get dominated.
Yes, the Pac 10 might be getting to a point where their defenses are better (you’ve jumped the gun a bit on UW and UA having solid defenses) but the Pac 10 is not going to change their image with the rest of the country. Its just not. I could cite tons of statistics showing that the Pac 10 has been every bit the conference as the SEC has over the last decade and the reality is SEC football is just a way of life that Pac 10 football isn’t for the fan bases.
However, JD, we’ll just agree to disagree if you really feel like SEC teams are more complete OFFENSIVELY than the Pac 10. The only way I believe you can have a complete offensive team is to have quality quarterbacks and I am not sure where all those quality QBs are from the SEC. Outside of the Manning Brothers, name some recent SEC QBs…
That sentence didn’t come out right. Overall, I feel the teams are more complete than the pac 10. They may not be better offensively. But they are defensively. The difference between the conferences is smaller offensively than they are defensively.
It will be nice to crush the Rose Bowl dreams of the ducks this year……
Bumpity – if you really want to crush the Ducks’ Rose Bowl dreams, you are going to have to hope someone else beats Oregon before the Civil War. Because if Oregon goes into that game 8-0 in conference, they will have already clinched the conference championship.
If a few things happen above the Ducks, OSU might have a chance to crush some hopes bigger than the Rose Bowl.
But I don’t see any of that happening. Chip has the Ducks playing at such a high level that it’s hard to imagine anyone in the PAC-10 beating them right now.
Right now, only two teams in the Pac-10 control their own destiny: Oregon and Arizona. If Arizona wins out, which would include a victory over the Ducks in Tuscon, they and not Oregon go to the RB.
For any 2-loss Pac-10 team to have a shot, Arizona must lose one more game and the Ducks must lose twice. Oregon has two tough road games (Zona and Stanford), ASU at home which should be a cakewalk, and the Civil War, in which by definition anything can happen.
Arizona won’t beat USC
Arizona and Stanford….. it will be fun to read all the excuses duck fans post after being beat by one or both of those teams……
Or your delicious silence when they win both.
What gets me is Oregon or Oregon State fans rooting against each other against teams like Stanford and Arizona. That’s something a Californian would do.
you mean kinda like the Ducks did to them last year?
JD, I don’t know what stats you have to show your logic, but its flawed. There is as much or more difference between SEC and Pac 10 offenses as there is a difference between their defenses.
The SEC does not produce consistent quality QBs which means they completely under-utilize any quality WRs and TEs they have. As for RBs, who are the best SEC running backs in the NFL right now? Ronnie Brown? Knowshon Moreno? Joseph Addai? That’s it…
As for defense, Jairus Byrd is #1 in the NFL in INTs this year, Keith Ellison is #3 and Brian Cushing is #5 in tackles (Willis is #4 – highest SEC guy).
Feel free to blast me if I’m off my rocker: Do you even WANT Legerrette Blount back on your team this season? Yes, on paper he’s a huge boost and asset. Thing is, maybe he was an “addition by subtraction.” Chemistry IS a big thing (look at the Blazers over the years, where their records didn’t always relfect their talent level, good and bad), and the Ducks seem to be gelling. Somebody may be resentful of him being let back on the team. Somebody’s going to lose playing time. On the other hand, if Oregon struggles offensively in a game, and Blount’s not reinstated, I will be the first to say “we should have reinstated Blount.” So, it’s a gamble, and we can go either way here.
If you think that it’s cut-and-dried, bring back Blount, I’m receptive to hearing that.
Blount, at best, is a backup now. He’s probably going to see little time and when he does, it will be in garbage time. A vast majority of the carriers are going to be by Masoli and James the rest of the year.
As for chemistry, Blount has been with the team all year as the featured scout team guy. He’s not going to be the kid from the movie Summer School showing back up at the end of the movie with the bathroom key.
the best way remedy that is to schedule fla, ala, lsu in non-conf games
rose bowl is NOT a given: az only has 1 loss – and that was on a fluke play at washington (who also beat usc)
lets focus about stanford: all this ‘rankings’ talk is a distraction and it is not anything the ducks can control
also: free legarette – let him have a few carries
Rose Bowl is definitely not a given, but with UA still having to go to USC that “likely” gives every Pac 10 team 2 losses which gives UO room to lose one game and still go to the Rose Bowl.
I think UO could stumble at UA or even at Stanford, but enough of this talk about UO losing to ASU at Autzen. C’mon….let’s be rational here.
As for a remedy for the perceived difference between conferences, Oregon does have home and homes scheduled with Tennessee starting up. At least Tennessee has been willing to do this. Good luck getting Florida or Alabama to travel to Eugene.
The biggest difference between the conferences are the stadiums and fan bases. Even when you watch a bad SEC game, you are watching two teams play in front of a packed house of rabid fans. The Pac 10 doesn’t have this on a regular basis. There are too many Pac 10 games played in front of half-full stadiums that make the product on the field seem inferior. Why would an SEC fan give any respect to UO winning at Stanford on Saturday in front a quiet half-full stadium?
By your logic, implying that the quality of the fans in the stadium reflects for SEC fans the quality of what’s on the field, then the UO should be getting mad respect from the SEC. There isn’t any SEC stadium crowd that has anything on those in Autzen. Yes, they jam their stadiums as well as they jam their NASCAR tracks, but that doesn’t make either worth watching.
And good luck getting Florida or Alabama to leave the East EVER. Complete wussies when it comes to traveling.
Troy,
Autzen is a perfect example of the respect the rest of the conference lacks. Gameday has shown up to Autzen 3 times in the last 3 years. If more Pac 10 stadiums were like that then the conference might get more featured games on Gameday, thus exposing the conference more.
The problem is after that great showing by Oregon on Saturday, they are now going to travel to a terrible atmosphere at Stanford. Anyone who decides to tune into that game will quickly assume the Pac 10 is a 2nd tier conference based solely on the terrible vibe of that stadium. Half of the stadiums in the Pac 10 feel like you are watching some bad lower tier college game.
With so many national pundits wanting UW to become something relevant again, do you notice one of the first things that is pointed out about them? Their crowd and how it registered the loudest rating every for some random game in the past. Everyone talks about how tough it is to play there. Its what gives UW instant respect after winning a couple of games.
If there were several other Pac 10 venues that were as full and rowdy as Autzen, the Pac 10 would develop this reputation about how no one wants to travel to the West Coast. Just think about the respect the conference would get if Seattle, Corvallis, Berkeley, and Tempe were crazy venues to play in.
The Pac 10 has done everything it can with winning on the field, winning bowl games, sending players to the NFL, etc. I don’t buy that any conference has more talent than the Pac 10 year in and year out. There are other things at play here…stadiums, crowds, poor television deals, bowl affiliations, etc. It has nothing to do with the actual talent of the teams.
The big O plays a group of backs all thru the game , and adding Blount in is a good idea.When we face Iowa in the RB we will have to punch through a typical huge big 10 line , and James and Masoli won’t get 6 inches.
Billb,
Are you serious? James and Masoli won’t get 6 inches on Iowa’s Big 10 d-line? Was Michigan one of those Big 10 lines two years ago?
Iowa gave up 190yds to Iowa State and 195yds to Michigan on the ground this year. UO will do just fine running the ball against Iowa with or without Blount.
Teams that have historically relied on giant meandering d-linemen to stop the run are the exact teams that will get murdered by a spread option attack. The defensive lines of UCLA and USC have far more talent than Iowa. I would love the opportunity to see a bunch of Big 10 fatties stretch the field trying to even get a hand on the Oregon running backs.
The Big-10 used to be an upper tier conference. I think its future rests on the shoulders of Michigan if it truly goes anywhere. Iowa is completely overrated. If Oregon doesn’t get to the NC game, I hope they play either Boise State, which won’t happen or Iowa. Either way, Oregon wins by 4 touchdowns if it’s that close. Still work to do though….
“when people see USC lose a conference game, the first reaction is that, well, the Trojans are down a little”
Coughing Cowterd- King of stating the obvious. Over and over and over