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.

 

Sunday Musings: November 24th

Missouri

This is a team that is without a question, very very good. But there is lingering doubt in my mind about their ability to fend off a charge from Oklahoma. Are they really and truly a National Title caliber team? I say yes, but they certainly don’t look it on defense, even though there has been a remarkable improvement on that side of the ball. Chase Daniel made an interesting point last night on College Gameday Final, or whatever that bullshit is called. Missouri was very close to winning that match up the first time around, and they were, but they imploded in upon themselves, like Missouri has been oh so prone to do under the Pinkle. I have to look more into this team, this week. If they survive against Oklahoma, the match up with West Virginia looks awfully entertaining from where I am sitting.

West Virginia

Holy Shit. This is becoming an absolute buzz saw of an offense. Given the circumstances of the game, I am not sure that West Fucking Virginia could have had a better performance. Given Connecticut a lot of credit in this game, they certainly played much much harder than they did in their last real game (playing Syracuse after all is a just a glorified scrimmage) against Cincinnati, where they were dominated from the onset and where never in the game, mentally or physically. The Huskies gave it a go, and were decidedly in the game for the first half. But after that, Pat White put the pedal to the metal. What resulted was a firm step on the throat of UConn’s dream season and a simply dominating performance. This is not a team anyone wants a piece of right now, the offense is playing at an otherworldly level and, unlike last season, the defense is playing at a very high level.

USC

Reminded us all what they can do when healthy on Thursday night. The defense remained as good as it has been all season. The difference was the offense, and most notably John David Booty, who looked vintage for a USC QB, which is a hell of a statement given what it mean, and what he has looked like since the Washington game. A defensive stat for thought. USC has given up 400 plus yards once this season, 300 yards twice and has held to opponents to below 190 yards three times this year. Another team that no one is going to want to play in a bowl, though a USC OSU Rose Bowl would be fantastic. Given of course that USC beats ever schizophrenic UCLA Saturday.

LSU

If the people of this state don’t hate overtime yet, they never will. There are couple of things that stood out to me right away. First of all, massive props to Darren McFadden, Payton Hillis and Felix Jones. All three were fantastic in their own ways on Friday. But there is a point that needs to be made about the game of College Football. The most important position on defense is defensive tackle. A good defensive tackle makes a good defense very good, and a great defense elite. A guy like Glenn Dorsey creates a monster out of a good defense. But if he is not good to go, he is dead weight. Not to make excuses, but does anyone think that Arkansas would run that wild with a healthy Dorsey? Of course not, but he was not himself, and that more than anything was why LSU lost. Not because Gary Crowton went to the well one to many times with the slant against corners who were jumping routes all night long. It was because a healthy Jonathan Lugis was able to dominate and injured Glenn Dorsey at the point of attack all night long. In the end, LSU’s luck was going to run out at some point. They had been living on the edge for far too long.

Thanksgiving Football

One game that I am really looking forward to this weekend is not actually taking place on the weekend. It is on thanksgiving night. USC at Arizona State should be a very good game. There is a lot riding on this game for both teams, for Arizona State this is yet another chance to prove that they are for real, after they were handled so firmly by Oregon. USC has as much, or more on the line in this game. As bad as USC’s season has been, from the multiple streak breaking debacle against Stanford to the hard fought loss to Oregon, USC still, has a chance, as incredible as this sounds, to make an unprecedented 6th BCS bowl and a 6th PAC 10 championship is as many seasons. There is a lot on the line for both teams. Thursday will also be my first extended look at either squad in a few weeks, and my first with USC since their offensive line did this to Nebraska on an extended, game wide basis.

However, since that physical beat down of the Pink Shirts the USC offense has regressed, significantly. The running game, which everyone and their mother assumed would become the calling card of this offense after the Nebraska game, has slowly but surely crawled inside it’s protective cocoon. This is due mainly to a somewhat ridiculous string of injuries that has plagued the Trojans in the backfield and on the offensive line, bottoming out in a 38 rush, 95 yard performance against Stanford, yeah that Stanford. The problem for the USC offense has been the play of their QB’s, they have not been that bad in the macro, but they haven’t been the clutch players that we have come to expect from the previous Carroll era QB’s Chillin Matt Leinart and Carson Palmer when the running game is not hitting on all cylinders. The receivers have been very disappointing in my eyes, but it could be that I expected too much from them from the get go, like most people who got wrapped up in the hyperbole like everyone else. In short the offense has been the disappointment for USC. The defense has been stellar and consistent all year long, they came closer than anyone else to shutting down Oregon. In short the defense is for real, the offense is a continual work in progress, with no consistency in the running game from week to week, causing erratic performances from their QB’s because they can’t rely on the running game to provide balance.

Arizona State is a team that I have not seen all that much. I saw a large portion of their second half against Cal, and I did see the Oregon game, but I didn’t come away impressed with the Sun Devils after either game. I am a firm believer in the power of adversity. Routinely being in tight games, occasionally trailing at the half, going down to the wire in a couple of games are all good things for teams. But routinely being outplayed in the first half, or routinely struggling with inferior teams is always a cause for concern. Thats the main reason I thought very little of Wisconsin this year. It is also the reason why I think very little of Arizona State. Oregon State, Washington State, Washington, Cal, Oregon, and consistently schizophrenic UCLA have all put the Sun Devils in holes of varying sizes at the half. Look at those teams you have a very fine mixture of the bad (Washington State, and Washington), the average (Oregon State, and Cal) and the excellent (Oregon with Dennis Dixon) and then theirs UCLA who have a category of their own. Arizona State can not afford a slow start in this game.

This is by far the toughest defense that Arizona State will have gone against this season. I know that they played Colorado earlier this season, and that Colorado has a very good defense in some facets, but USC is just at another level. USC isn’t an elite team right now, but their defense certainly is, the numbers bear that out. This is going to be a knock down drag out defensive struggle, which swings the game decidedly in the favor of USC. I am not so sure that Arizona State can put it together for the requisite 4 quarters that it is going to take to win this game. They can’t play just a half, I just don’t see USC’s defense allowing them back in the game if they only show up for a half.

I say: USC 17 – ASU 10

There It Goes

I, for one, did not see this coming. With no Dennis Dixon this team is in a world of hurt, I am not sure if they will even win the conference. And another #2 bit the dust to an unranked team. That’s 10 on the year if you are keeping track.

Take Your Pick; Oregon, LSU

Ohio State is the best team in the country. That is something that really can’t be disputed at this point in time. Whether or not the Buckeye’s are the world beating team of legends many OSU fans wish them to be isn’t something we know right now, we can make assumptions about where this team stands in the pantheon of great teams, but those type of discussions are premature by any reasonable standard, and bordering on insanity given the tenor of this season. Regardless, that is a discussion that should be reserved for the morning of January the 8th. And so it is that, with  4 weeks remaining in the season, the defining narrative for the month of November is found. Oregon and LSU; Who ya got.

The complexity of the debate between these two teams is intricate, and thereby inherently complicated. But the general tenor that will be taken, by most, not so much in the media, but amongst fans like yourselves will boil down to a simple and epic conference debate, between what are, in my opinion at least, the two best conferences in the country. I urge you not to get caught up in that, because, frankly there is no proper answer to that question, you could take the top ten of the SEC and line them up against the PAC 10 and pretty much every game would be a toss up. There is no right answer to that question, always keep that in mind when you start/engage in/finish this argument at your local bar. As for Oregon and LSU, there is a lot to cover, so let us begin by laying down a statistical base for both teams

Oregon

• Scoring Offense – 42.8
• Scoring Defense – 22.0
• Rush Offense – 272.22
• Rush Defense – 134.67
• Pass Offense – 238.3
• Pass Defense – 269.9
• Total Offense – 510.6
• Total Defense – 404.4

LSU

• Scoring Offense – 37.2
• Scoring Defense – 17.4
• Rush Offense – 209.00
• Rush Defense – 65.89
• Pass Offense – 230.8
• Pass Defense – 168.8
• Total Offense – 439.8
• Total Defense – 234.7

On the face of it the old cliche about the unstoppable force and the immovable object does seem to apply here. When you look at the two teams, and what they have done to this point there are a lot of things that they have in common. Both schools fell victim to a top 10 ranked conference rival, Cal for Oregon and Kentucky for LSU. For both schools, that loss is beginging to have a larger and larger negative impact every week. Cal has been a wreck since that game in Autzen, going 1-3 and losing to Oregon State, Arizona State and the hypeschizophrenic UCLA. Cal just got off the snide last week against Washington State. Barely. Kentucky is doing the same thing that Cal is doing, namely sliding into the obscurity from whence they came winning one of their last 4, of course that singular win would be against LSU.

Both teams have run roughshod over their opponents, with the obvious and glaring exceptions of the games that they lost. Though, admittedly LSU has been surviving on the ability of its defense to be a brick wall while Matt Flynn continues to make a couple iffy decisions a game, decisions that often keep the score closer than it otherwise should be.

It is also interesting to note that the glaring weaknesses of both teams would be pitted against the other, with the fate of the game possibly at stake. Oregon has issues in the secondary. They have a middling pass efficiency rating, they give up a lot of yards, and don’t force an overwhelming number of mistakes out of opposing QB’s. The major weakness of LSU, in my eyes, is that Matt Flynn and the recently departed Ryan Perrilloux have made questionable decisions all season long. Last week’s game against Alabama was closer than it should have been because of Matt Flynn’s decisionmaking in the first half. He did redeem himself later on, but that doesn’t solve the problem.

In the end, this debate will center upon one thing. Who would win in a mythical neutral site game between LSU and Oregon? While I do subscribe, wholeheartedly, to the schema of the great LSU defense, there is one man who can make that defense and its collection of imposing Argonath of indestructibility look human, Tim Tebow. He is the only person who has had that defense on it’s heels for any sustained period of time. Florida could very well have won that game for want of a running game. The offenses of Oregon and Florida are eerily similar from where I am sitting in terms of scheme, personnel and objective. The one glaring difference between the two, Jonathan Stewart. I love Percy Harvin, and he can be used effectivly out of a set back possition, but he can’t simply be a tailback for any sustained period of time. LSU would move the ball on Oregon, quite effectively, but the iffy decision making of the dual headed LSU quarterback monster has come very, very close to biting them in the ass. On the other hand you have Dennis Dixon, a man that I made fun of in the summer.  The baseball didn’t hurt his decision making, and that would be the difference in a hypothetical match up. Right now I think that Oregon deserves the match up with OSU, that is, as always subject to change. So, tell me, who is your pick between the two, leave your responses below.