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Is the PAC12 the Weakest P5 conference this year?

BlackNGold

BlackNGold

Club Member
Washington appears to be the class of the conference but they lost to a pitiful CAL team. Stanford is lost without Love and likewise Oregon without their QB. Coaching seems to be lacking around the conference - USC has tons of talent but gets less out of more than most teams. Helton hired his friends into key positions and it is showing. Mora does beat out Helton for getting less out of more.

Utah is in a slide which they do every year because of lack of depth. Washington could probably play with anyone but after that I doubt the other teams could (USC against ND showed they are not ready for prime time).

I just wondering if we are seeing the effects of poor TV spots on nationwide recruiting - you cannot expect CA for supply the entire conference with talent.
 
A lot I really do not agree with, but the comments on Helton are especially curious, given his team is poised to finish 10-2.
 
No. Still think the Big 12 is-because they've got the two worst teams in the P5 in their league (I think OSU would probably beat both Baylor and Kansas by 10)
 
If you look just at the Pac12 footprint, you get the following 247 Composite "Blue Chip" (4 and 5 star) recruits from the last 5 years:
CA: 199
AZ: 24
WA: 18
OR: 10
UT: 14
CO: 10
NV: 13

Total: 288

That's enough for 24 four and five star recruits to be on each team - of course USC & WA have more than OSU & CU.Yes, other teams recruit these areas, too, but it isn't the same as the competition for recruits in FL or TX, either.

I'm also not convinced the Pac 12 is down vs beating each other up. The Pac 12 was second in overall out of conference win % (27-7, .794) and tops in P5 OOC win % (6-2, .750)
http://www.ncaa.com/news/football/a...tball-how-power-5-conferences-stack-stat-stat
 
The lack of a CFP contender, save for UW with an outside shot, at the moment probably drives perception more than anything. Arizona, Washington State, and Oregon State improved. Utah, CU, and Oregon seem worse. UCLA falling off and the SC nightmare in South Bend will not help the UW case for the CFP because as we've seen over the years, perception of program and conference are the foundation on which any committee evaluation starts, whether they want to consciously admit it or not..
 
BlackNGold said:
Washington appears to be the class of the conference but they lost to a pitiful CAL team. Stanford is lost without Love and likewise Oregon without their QB. Coaching seems to be lacking around the conference - USC has tons of talent but gets less out of more than most teams. Helton hired his friends into key positions and it is showing. Mora does beat out Helton for getting less out of more.

Utah is in a slide which they do every year because of lack of depth. Washington could probably play with anyone but after that I doubt the other teams could (USC against ND showed they are not ready for prime time).

I just wondering if we are seeing the effects of poor TV spots on nationwide recruiting - you cannot expect CA for supply the entire conference with talent.
Click to expand...
Washington did not lose to Cal. They curb-stomped Cal.
 
I think we have two teams at the top and Ten teams that are all capable of beating the others on any given Saturday. Does that make us the worst? I don’t think so, but it does make for a lot of losses in the middle of the conference.

The SEC has two teams clearly at the top. I’m not convinced the rest of that conference is that good.
 
If you only look at the top of the conference it would appear so but if you look at the entire conference the PAC is easily at least comparable to the other major conferences.

B12 - Each of the top teams has had at least one stinker game. Defenses are notable absent, which top B12 team can stop a quality opponent often enough to have a good chance to win. Records get padded by playing maybe the two worst teams in P5 football in Kansas and Baylor. Oregon State is a powerhouse compared to the bottom of the B12

B1G - Wisconsin and who. Wisconsin hasn't played anybody, every other team has shown significant weakness at least once and most more. Washington looked bad once, other than Wisconsin every team in the B1G has looked bad at least twice. Illinois, Minnesota, Indiana Maryland, Rutgers are all record padders. Lots of bad football in that league.

ACC - Clemson looks good but beatable, Miami has surprised but again isn't a great team. Another league that has a lot of free wins in the schedule.

SEC - Two outstanding teams in Bama and UGA, the rest? A lot of average to below average teams.

Easy to be down on the PAC but compared to everybody else it is a good league with tough schedules for everybody.

This is modern college football. With so many of the top players going to the draft early it is hard to find teams without flaws. You can always say this team could be better here or that team there but the idea that the PAC doesn't match up is just wrong. Not that ESPN and a lot of the eastern media who don't bother to watch would admit it.
 
For me the short answer is no. Outside of 2 teams way better than the rest and one woefully worst than the rest, there is quite a bit of parity between the other 9.
 
The SEC has an excuse their fans use for this. "We're just all so good we beat each other up every week." This after some of them in the upper tier struggle with teams like Jacksonville State and McNeese State in non-conference play.
 
Oregon State being better than Baylor & Kansas? That's debatable. Especially after getting whooped by CSU.

Portland State, who nearly beat Oregon State still hasn't won a game this season. Southeast Missouri State, who Kansas beat by a good score, is 2-7 for the season. Liberty, who beat Baylor, is 5-4 on the season. Portland State isn't a good FCS team at all this season while the others might be more decent.

Looking at the scores, you can say that Oregon State is better than Kansas. But when it comes to Baylor, I'd say about even.

Would having the better bottom feeder team in the conference matter if the Big 12 sends a team to the CFP while the Pac-12 misses out?
 
The dregs of the SEC are probably better than the bottom feeders of other conferences. Mizzou, Ole Miss, Vandy and Kentucky are probably all better than OSU.
 
PAC12 way too jammed with giant killers who could never be giants.

Conference needs a single dominate program with lots of patsies at the bottom to make the championship year in and year out.
 
Highlander said:
If you look just at the Pac12 footprint, you get the following 247 Composite "Blue Chip" (4 and 5 star) recruits from the last 5 years:
CA: 199
AZ: 24
WA: 18
OR: 10
UT: 14
CO: 10
NV: 13

Total: 288

That's enough for 24 four and five star recruits to be on each team - of course USC & WA have more than OSU & CU.Yes, other teams recruit these areas, too, but it isn't the same as the competition for recruits in FL or TX, either.

I'm also not convinced the Pac 12 is down vs beating each other up. The Pac 12 was second in overall out of conference win % (27-7, .794) and tops in P5 OOC win % (6-2, .750)
http://www.ncaa.com/news/football/a...tball-how-power-5-conferences-stack-stat-stat
Click to expand...

Also keep in mind that one of those P5 losses belongs to OSU, a team that cannot beat any other team from the P12. The other was ASU's loss to Tech.

However, that doesn't take into account USC's loss to Notre Dame.

Stanford's the only one with an OOC game left- they have ND to end the season.
 
One of those season like when we had a BYU national champion, CU getting into the championship at 10-1-1 or LSU winning the title despite having 2 losses to get there.

We may have a great team this season in Alabama. But mostly what I'm seeing is a lot of flawed teams and a lot more parity than we usually see in college football. In the Pac-12, that's exacerbated and that's not surprising since it's the conference that has the most parity -- every program has had runs into Top 10 range this century, I believe. No other conference is like that with the relative talent so balanced.
 
8Jah said:
PAC12 way too jammed with giant killers who could never be giants.

Conference needs a single dominate program with lots of patsies at the bottom to make the championship year in and year out.
Click to expand...

Yuck. I really don’t like the idea of ceding dominance to a single program in our conference, unless that program is CU.

One of the great virtues of sports is the concept of a level playing field.

I get weary of playoffs discussions focusing on the same blue blood program names year after year.

I have Ohio State, Alabama, Notre Dame, and USC fatigue.

Too bad the Rose Bowl doesn’t get to host the best Pac-12 versus the best Big10 team this year. Because a traditional Rose Bowl matchup would be as entertaining as Bama vs Penn State to me.
 
Clean Undies said:
Yuck. I really don’t like the idea of ceding dominance to a single program in our conference, unless that program is CU.

One of the great virtues of sports is the concept of a level playing field.

I get weary of playoffs discussions focusing on the same blue blood program names year after year.

I have Ohio State, Alabama, Notre Dame, and USC fatigue.

Too bad the Rose Bowl doesn’t get to host the best Pac-12 versus the best Big10 team this year. Because a traditional Rose Bowl matchup would be as entertaining as Bama vs Penn State to me.
Click to expand...

Don't like it either, but is what it is.

take last year. Clemson taking the championship was as much about patsies in the ACC as it was about Clemson being a great football team. Both were true.
 
Clean Undies said:
Yuck. I really don’t like the idea of ceding dominance to a single program in our conference, unless that program is CU.

One of the great virtues of sports is the concept of a level playing field.

I get weary of playoffs discussions focusing on the same blue blood program names year after year.

I have Ohio State, Alabama, Notre Dame, and USC fatigue.

Too bad the Rose Bowl doesn’t get to host the best Pac-12 versus the best Big10 team this year. Because a traditional Rose Bowl matchup would be as entertaining as Bama vs Penn State to me.
Click to expand...
That is college football, though. There’s no such thing as a level playing field, whether you’re talking nationally or even within the same conferences. If you want a level playing field, new teams rising to the top and a lot of parity, the NFL is your jam.
 
TSchekler said:
That is college football, though. There’s no such thing as a level playing field, whether you’re talking nationally or even within the same conferences. If you want a level playing field, new teams rising to the top and a lot of parity, the NFL is your jam.
Click to expand...
Agreed. But within that pecking order of college football there are still up-turns and down-turns that result in a program like Texas struggling to make bowl games for a period of time while a much smaller program like TCU goes from G5 to challenging to make the playoffs for about a decade. Having a well-run organization with consistent leadership (like Wisconsin under Alvarez) overcomes most of the inherent advantages of the elites. Now, when you've got an elite that puts it all together (like Ohio State with Tressel coaching & Gee as president) then there's no stopping a program like that from dominating the conference.
 
It’s funny to bring up Barry Alvarez.

Here are some interesting facts about his coaching career at Wisconsin:

Hired in 1990, went 1-10 his first year.
Went 5-6 in years 2 and 3.
Went 10-1-1 in year 4 and went to the Rose Bowl.
Year 5 he went 7-4-1
Year 6 he went 4-5-2.

Can you imagine what Wisconsin would look like today had they fired him after year six because of a 4-5-2 record?

He went on to win two Big 10 titles over the next 10 years, but missed a bowl in 2001.

Point being, if we want to pattern ourselves after Wisconsin, we need to take a look at how they handled disappointing seasons. 4-5-2 in year six!!! He had all his own recruits! He had all his own assistants!!

We are not Michigan, USC, Ohio State, Alabama or Florida. We have to take a long view or else we will be stuck in a cycle of craptitude for decades. MM is a capable, competent coach.
 
sackman said:
It’s funny to bring up Barry Alvarez.

Here are some interesting facts about his coaching career at Wisconsin:

Hired in 1990, went 1-10 his first year.
Went 5-6 in years 2 and 3.
Went 10-1-1 in year 4 and went to the Rose Bowl.
Year 5 he went 7-4-1
Year 6 he went 4-5-2.

Can you imagine what Wisconsin would look like today had they fired him after year six because of a 4-5-2 record?

He went on to win two Big 10 titles over the next 10 years, but missed a bowl in 2001.

Point being, if we want to pattern ourselves after Wisconsin, we need to take a look at how they handled disappointing seasons. 4-5-2 in year six!!! He had all his own recruits! He had all his own assistants!!

We are not Michigan, USC, Ohio State, Alabama or Florida. We have to take a long view or else we will be stuck in a cycle of craptitude for decades. MM is a capable, competent coach.
Click to expand...
I very much like the long term perspective. There is an option to stick with MM and trust him to grow, improvr and identify with CU football as it develops and improves. We’ve gotten so used to changing out coaches every few years it feels normal.

Having said that, I’m not sure Mm’s the guy to keep long term...
 
I feel like any time we get successful, our coach gets poached. We're like a mid-major program, a perfect stepping stone to the majors for coaches that win. And a good test school too, to see if coaches can't actually win here, and if not then try, try again. Concerned that Woody's prediction to Les Shapiro is true, and CU will not RTD any time soon. Is there a coach who might stick around like Mac1?
 
CULifer said:
I feel like any time we get successful, our coach gets poached. We're like a mid-major program, a perfect stepping stone to the majors for coaches that win. And a good test school too, to see if coaches can't actually win here, and if not then try, try again. Concerned that Woody's prediction to Les Shapiro is true, and CU will not RTD any time soon. Is there a coach who might stick around like Mac1?
Click to expand...
I won’t claim to be an expert historian, but other than Neuheisal, who’s been poached in the last 30 years? Your fears may be accurate but we’ve not really had any head coach worth poaching.
 
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