yesterday's rose bowl and the '09 bowl season in general have proven one thing to college football fans and the national media in general - the pac 10 is if not the best, the second best college football conference in the game today. the sec and the pac 10 and far and away the best and most competitive conferences in the country and they have been for some years.
the ohio state, texas and oklahoma teams that have shown themselves to be relevant in the 00's were flashes in the national pan that only were successful based on superstar players. vince young's rose bowl victory over usc will go down as one of the most dominant individual performances in recent memory and perhaps ever, but without him, usc would have won four consecutive rose bowls and texas probably would not have been in that game in the first place. without ted ginn and troy smith, ohio state would have become just as irrelevant. oklahoma had some great qb's but never have played well in huge games, until this year and even this year they couldn't win the red river shootout. this argument obviously goes both ways but the level of continued athleticism and raw talent on display for the better part of a decade at the l.a. coliseum is indisputably unmatched anywhere else in the country over the same stretch.
how about this for a question - why wasn't mark sanchez up for the heisman? after the game yesterday, his attitude and diction suggest he will be back next year to most definitely win the award, but watching him yesterday and throughout the year, he is absolutely a better quarterback than tim tebow or colt mccoy. those guys are great leaders and tough players, but not better quarterbacks than sanchez. i guess sam bradford deserved the heisman this year, he was for sure the best qb in the nation, but there were better players out there - brian orakpo of texas and rey maualuga of usc could have easily been considered as the best players in the country as well.
usc easily handled penn state yesterday, as was predicted and as they should have. oregon handled oklahoma state. arizona handled byu. cal handled miami and oregon state beat pitt in an absolutely awful game that should have had its highlights shown in black and white. the pac 10 became the only conference to go undefeated and beat some very good teams with national recognition handily. the big 12 and big 10 haven't had the same performances and therefore have shown themselves to be a step below the pac 10 and sec.
lee corso saying that the pac 10 needs to get a tv deal so east coast pollsters can see them play is nonsense. for someone who works as a college football analyst, the old guy just doesn't really know what he is talking about! usc played in plenty of nationally televised games this year - they smoked ohio state in one of them, lost to oregon state in another and dominated penn state in a third, not to mention stomping notre dame and ucla on nationally televised games. east coast ap voters and writers need to just stop watching lsu v. mississippi state and check out cal v. arizona instead to realize that the pac 10 is just as good, if not better, than the sec.
looking forward, the pac 10 is only going to get better with steve sarkisian moving to washington. there could be six pac 10 teams in bowl games next year depending on how sarkisian's recruiting goes and how well he can groom jake locker to run a pro offense, make reads and not break his thumb trying to block people. jim harbaugh's stanford team isn't very far away from success either, there are some very good players on that team who no one knows about and those guys could spoil someone's season next year - they almost beat usc this year and that would have really made a mess of things. arizona will have to reload at qb, asu will have another losing record - two words, dennis erickson - washington state is hopeless and neuhisel will surely do something to ruin ucla. other than that, the pac 10 is looking pretty serious.
as pete carroll said after the rose bowl, no one could beat that team this year. bring on the plus one!
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While I agree the PAC 10 doesn't get nearly as much credit as it probably should, it's still difficult to place it above the Big 12 as far as talented programs go. I mean you're looking at some pretty great teams there.
ReplyDeleteI also think Sanchez is taking the Heisman next year. He's poised to make a jump to an even higher level next year, as much of his core will remain around him.
I like this entry by the way, although I like basically anything that states how wrong Lee Corso is. We're looking for bloggers at www.collegefanz.com, the largest college sports site on the net.
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