A Look Back: The PAC 10

For a refresher on what I thought I knew coming into the season click here, here and here.

 

If the cracks in Troy’s dynasty were starting to show in 2006, they are out in front of the whole world right now. That is not to say that USC isn’t the best team in the conference. On the contrary, with Oregon a shadow of it’s previously awe inspiring offensive self, and Arizona State displaying, in emphatic terms that they still are Arizona State on Thanksgiving. USC clearly is the best team in the conference, by a sizable margin. So yes it is another year, another PAC 10 crown, even if it was shared, and another BCS bowl. And yet this Trojan team was a big disappointment. And that is for one very simple, and very logical reason, Stanford.

 

 

By the way that is by far the best of the worst game winning play by play calls. Ever. Listen closely. USC failed to live up to the billing this year, plain and simple, well at least on offense. The defense was phenomenal all year long, with the noted exception of the last two or so minutes against Stanford. But the problem was with the offense. Fred Davis was the only guy who stood out as exceptional for the duration of the season, everyone else just flitted in and out of the scene with varying degrees of sporadic at best production. Coming into the year there was no feature back, and there was no proven, go to talent on the perimeter. Yeah there was talent, but there is a pronounced difference between talent and production. One does not guarantee the other. Neither of those questions was was answered until very late in the year. The offense was constantly looking for answers. Early on, when the offensive line was blowing holes in defensive fronts the running game looked to be the answer. But as the body toll on the line and in the backfield mounted a new answer was needed, and the offense didn’t have one at QB, on account of JD Booty’s injuries and Mark Sanchez’s greenish hue. Yes this is a tremendously talented team, and yes no one in their right mind wants a piece of them, but still this team was a disappointment.

 

The PAC 10 was truly a land of surprises this year, of the good and the not so good varieties. For the good there is the touching story of Arizona State, and that maverick head coach of theirs, with a history of problem drinking, and a deep seated love for flying golf carts over volcano’s. His team really defied logic, not so much in winning so often, often enough earn a share of the PAC 10 trophy in fact, but in the way that they did it. By routinely spotting teams a quarter, or a half. Why? Who knows, but I cast my vote for too many 80’s parties, a.k.a. Coke N’ Stripper parties. The fact of the matter is that ASU went into the locker room trailing in 7 of 12 games, and they won 5 of them. Really strange, even for this year.

In roughly the same boat is Cal. But unlike UCLA, Cal was a tale of two teams. In the first half of the season Cal looked damn, good. Issues on the defensive side of the ball, particularly in the secondary were readily apparent from day one. But the offense had the explosive ability to compensate for the weakness of the defense. However, as the season wore on, the point of diminishing marginal return was reached. Look at the stat line. For the first half of the season the offense had an average output of 435 yards, their record during that span? 5-1, the last six games? The offense was dismal, 364 yards per game, the record in that span was 1-5. While UCLA was truly schizophrenic, never the same from week to week, Cal simply went from being a very good team to being a very bad team, seemingly overnight.

One last thing, Jake Locker is the truth. He was buried on a bad team this year, but he is going to be one hell of a player in the future. He is one guy that I am really looking forward to watching next season.