Will the Real PAC-10 Please Stand Up!

If you’ve ever seen the old game show “To Tell the Truth,” where a panel interviews three men in an attempt to separate an authentic person from their impostors, you may know where I’m heading.It’s really hard to get a bead on the Pac-10, because it has consistently been a conference which cannibalizes itself.

Even though it always produces a few national title contenders, the conference experiences some bizarre internal results every season.

In the last 13 years alone—specifically inside the 85-player scholarship era—we’ve seen Oregon, Washington State, Washington, Arizona State, UCLA, Stanford, and USC play in the Rose Bowl. Only Arizona, California, and Oregon State have been missing from the equation.

But we’ve also witnessed some jaw-dropping, “you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me” results: Oregon State beating USC last year, Stanford beating USC this year, Oregon State going to the BCS Fiesta Bowl and defeating mighty Notre Dame—just two years removed from a dubious streak of 38 consecutive losing seasons (an infamous NCAA record).

Speaking of last year, how about BYU drilling Oregon and Arizona in the same season, not to mention Boise State making Oregon State look like the team that had only been competing at Division I-A for a little over a decade.

For those who live on Pacific Time, we already know that the Pac-10 isn’t just USC and the Nine Dwarves. But with these shocking results occurring weekly along the West Coast, how can we expect the others around the nation to take us seriously?

For example, UCLA was on the verge of cracking the top 10 early in the season, until a winless Utah squad blitzed the Bruins 44-6. Several weeks later, another winless team—Notre Dame—came to Beverly Hills and dropped UCLA by a score of 20-6.

And this after Oregon State’s debacle in Cincinnati, which came on the heels of Arizona’s losses to BYU and New Mexico.

How about Stanford looking like a giant killer two weeks ago against number one USC, then losing to TCU seven days later?

So if you are tiring of the continual Pac-10 bashing that occurs over the national airwaves, you can hardly blame them.

The Pac-10 plays such a high-risk/high-reward type of game that the results can go sideways in a hurry. Can you say California versus Tennessee last year?

And I haven’t even mentioned the injury factor. The Oregon Ducks may be a team which stumbles down the stretch due to that factor.

After season-ending injuries to Cameron Colvin and Brian Paysinger, they are down to their seventh and eighth receivers—not to mention their loss of starting tailback Jeremiah Johnson.

So, if you’re wishing for national respect for the Pac-10, please pray the “Conference of Champions” actually starts competing with consistency from week to week, so the rest of the nation will appreciate the west-coast-spread, basketball-on-grass, defenseless football we play!

We have no one to blame but ourselves. Will the real Pac-10 Conference please stand up and defend its honor?

PAC-10 Conference Standings:

1. ASU (4-0) (7-0)

2. UCLA (3-0) (4-2)

3. USC (3-1) (5-1)

4. CAL (2-1) (5-1)

5. Oregon (2-1) (5-1)

6. OSU (2-2) (4-3)

7. Stanford (1-3) (2-4)

8. Arizona (1-3) (2-5)

9. Washington (0-3) (2-4)

10. Washington State (0-4) (2-5)

The More Things Change The More They Stay the Same? Is This TOMA At Work - A Plug For The Elite CFA Alliance?

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There are some key games in the PAC-10 this week but none are bigger for Mike Stoops and Karl Dorrell. Another loss could be catastrophic for both and it will be interesting to see how California bounces back after the sting of the OSU loss is still smarting, and you could say the same for UCLA after the two week hang over from the Notre Dame debacle. The PAC-10 really needs California to win or you can look for the PAC-bashers to be out in full force.

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The Trojans should win this handily, but then again, they should have beaten Stanford handily. Watching the Trojans last week, I was awestruck how slow the Trojans looked on defense and how lost they seemed on offense. Of course, how bad can it truly be if you haven’t played any where even close to your capabilities and yet you stand 5-1? I thought this Notre Dame YouTube clip was hilarious!

DO YOU REMEMBER THE LAST TIME THESE TWO TEAMS MET IN SOUTH BEND?

at “Things Work A Little Differently When You Operate Outside of the CFA Alliance - BCSBusters.”

Who would have thought at the beginning of the season that Stanford would be moving one direction and the Cats would be moving another? I predicted a fourth or fifth place finish for Arizona. What the hell was I thinking? Will Stoops will be back in Norman for the holidays? I would say he needs a thanksgiving miracle, similar to the one another Arizona coach named Dirk Koetter received two years ago from Tempe! Not going to happen! This will most likely be the final nail in the Mike Stoops coffin in Tucson.

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I’ve been nervous about this game for the last two weeks. The Ducks have prided themselves on out-legging the Huskies ever since Husky coach Don James resigned in the early 1990’s. I smell a shark frenzy welling up in Seattle. The weather will be miserable, the crowd will be just as nasty this weekend and the Ducks are fighting injury equations which may disrupt the offense (along with the weather). If the Ducks ever want to answer the proverbial question…is GangGreen truly a championship level defense (?), then this is the time to do it.

This may be another upset special again this weekend, which would be bad for the perceived strength of the PAC-10. It may come down to a last second field goal. Who wins it is anyone’s guess…which pretty much sums up the national perception of the PAC-10.

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