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The conference now vs 10 years ago: was it better then?
Gladstone
Member Posts: 16,419
I'm looking at the teams as they were perceived in 2008, so I tried to disregard things like Cal's impending collapse because in '08 no one really would have guessed the extent of their downfall. Tedford had them pretty alright for a good long while.
Washington: Willingham // Petersen -- lol improved by a thousand oceans and heavens and parsecs. Way better now.
Washington State: Wulff // Leach -- significantly improved from dead last SRS, avg L margin 34.5, upper tier conference team now. Way better now.
Oregon State: Riley // Smith -- notably worse, went 7-2 in conference in 2008 and finished 3rd. Pure dreck now. Way worse now.
Oregon: Belotti (Chip as OC puppermaster) // Cristobal -- worse by many orders of magnitude. Way worse now.
The PNW schools are about the same, with just the two states having flipped in relevance.
Cal: Tedford // Wilcox -- in '08 Cal finished 9-3, 7-2. Wilcox could turn out OK but is largely still an unknown. Somewhat worse now.
@BearsWiin.
Stanford: Harbaugh // Shaw -- Year 2 of Khakis went 5-7 , Stanford now has been the toast of the conference for nearly a decade. Embarrassing. <b class="Bold">Way better now.
USC: Carroll // Helton -- 2008 was the last great year for Pete's dynasty. Way worse now.
UCLA: Neuheisel // Kelly -- 46-7 pedigree of terrorizing the P12 gives Chip the default win over skippy. Way better now.
USC, of course, is the argument for the conference being better 10 years ago because the conference truly had an elite team, amazing coaching staff, and was capable of winning the NC. If the playoffs existed in the 2000s how many more would USC have? At least one.
Arizona: Stoops // Sumlin -- This was the apex of Stoops' ever consistent barrage of 8-5 seasons. Midly decent at best and unremarkable. A&M reject Sumlin comes in to replace a program that is sub .500 the past 4 years. Slightly worse now.
Arizona State: Erickson // Edwards -- The alchy from Everett went 5-7 in 2008, but the bizarre Edwards hire does not portend well. Somewhat worse now.
Way better now: UW, WSU, Stanford, UCLA
Somewhat Better now:
Way worse now: Oregon State, Oregon, USC
Somewhat Worse: Cal, Arizona, Arizona State
For comparison's sake I didn't include Utah and Colorado, although they've largely lowered the conference's value. MacIntyre is flailing in mediocrity oblivion save one outlier year. Utah is the only team that hasn't won the south IIRC.
I'd say because of the ceiling being that much higher with USC, 2008 was a stronger year for the pac as it is now, although the depth to which people say the P12 has fallen is a bit overblown because it wasn't great 10 years ago, either.
Washington: Willingham // Petersen -- lol improved by a thousand oceans and heavens and parsecs. Way better now.
Washington State: Wulff // Leach -- significantly improved from dead last SRS, avg L margin 34.5, upper tier conference team now. Way better now.
Oregon State: Riley // Smith -- notably worse, went 7-2 in conference in 2008 and finished 3rd. Pure dreck now. Way worse now.
Oregon: Belotti (Chip as OC puppermaster) // Cristobal -- worse by many orders of magnitude. Way worse now.
The PNW schools are about the same, with just the two states having flipped in relevance.
Cal: Tedford // Wilcox -- in '08 Cal finished 9-3, 7-2. Wilcox could turn out OK but is largely still an unknown. Somewhat worse now.
@BearsWiin. Stanford: Harbaugh // Shaw -- Year 2 of Khakis went 5-7 , Stanford now has been the toast of the conference for nearly a decade. Embarrassing. <b class="Bold">Way better now.
USC: Carroll // Helton -- 2008 was the last great year for Pete's dynasty. Way worse now.
UCLA: Neuheisel // Kelly -- 46-7 pedigree of terrorizing the P12 gives Chip the default win over skippy. Way better now.
USC, of course, is the argument for the conference being better 10 years ago because the conference truly had an elite team, amazing coaching staff, and was capable of winning the NC. If the playoffs existed in the 2000s how many more would USC have? At least one.
Arizona: Stoops // Sumlin -- This was the apex of Stoops' ever consistent barrage of 8-5 seasons. Midly decent at best and unremarkable. A&M reject Sumlin comes in to replace a program that is sub .500 the past 4 years. Slightly worse now.
Arizona State: Erickson // Edwards -- The alchy from Everett went 5-7 in 2008, but the bizarre Edwards hire does not portend well. Somewhat worse now.
Way better now: UW, WSU, Stanford, UCLA
Somewhat Better now:
Way worse now: Oregon State, Oregon, USC
Somewhat Worse: Cal, Arizona, Arizona State
For comparison's sake I didn't include Utah and Colorado, although they've largely lowered the conference's value. MacIntyre is flailing in mediocrity oblivion save one outlier year. Utah is the only team that hasn't won the south IIRC.
I'd say because of the ceiling being that much higher with USC, 2008 was a stronger year for the pac as it is now, although the depth to which people say the P12 has fallen is a bit overblown because it wasn't great 10 years ago, either.
Comments
UCLA was UCLA.
Cal was on Ted's free fall.
Stanford was awful.
Oregon was under Bellotti.
OS was under Riley.
UA was UA.
ASU peaked the year before.
UW was UW.
Wazzu was Wazzu.
As all of these better then vs now things always come to the same conclusion; this conference blows regardless of time frame. If USC happens to be good the conference has a team that actually competes nationally. If USC is bad they don't.
For the mega-doogs trying to rewrite history Oregon was an 8 or 9 win team back then just like they are now and will be. Outside of those four years of Chip the Ducks have been an 8 or 9 win team since football was invented.
2009 was probably the worst year this conference has had in the last twenty. There wasn't even a conference race that year. A mediocre Oregon team played two good teams, got pushed around by both and lost to a bad Stanford team. If I remember right the team that finished second that year only had 6 conference wins and it might have been UA. 2016 wasn't really much different though.
Honestly the only good memory I can think of is
The good teams in conference were Utah, SC, WAzzu, Stanford, and Colorado. 3 of those games on the road including the one at Oregon. Lost only 1 of those by 13 and absolutely rolled everyone else except Utah.
If the conference was historically bad that year than Oregon wins 2-3 more games just with the residual talent from 2014.
It's really that simple. The doogs will pull hamstrings rationalizing this formula through the ages.
You're welcome.
Every year in the pac 12 you have 1-2 good to very good teams to beat, and 3 or so really solid teams to not fuck up against. Plus maybe your 1 or so trap game to a shitty team (Stanford Beavlets 2017, UW Arizona 2016, UW ASU 2017)
Whether that means the conference is awful or not doesn't matter, it's roughly the same in difficulty every year. 2010 and 2014 weren't different than 2016
If you think of the middle of the road teams the past decade which are Utah, ASU, UW, UCLA you get UCLA and ASU that have been really up or down. Utah and UW relatively consistent.
So when both ASU and UCLA suck the conference is awful.
And UW just traded places with oregon recently so nothings changed
therewith me.Cal and UCLA won OOC games against the SEC. The conference wasn't terrible, it's just that the team that won it had a ton of hype, more than just winning the conference, which probably was a bad call anyways because their coach is really mediocre.
Or has the weird preseason hype on utah and arizona clouded your mind?
Here's how fucking shitty colorados D is. This was part of a 400 yard rushing performance.
http://www.espn.com/video/clip?id=21292722
The nation actually respected West Coast football and now no one gives a shit