The Pac 10
Going into this bowl season, I thought the Pac-10 was one of the stronger conferences this season. As the results are showing, however, the Pac-10 is underachieving like it's cool. Could this possibly take some of the heat off the B-10 if we have a decent bowl season? With Wisco steamrolling Miami, and the Pac-10 getting smoked, this bowl season off to a very different start.
December 31st, 2009 at 6:38 PM ^
Living on the west coast- I get all pac 10 games every weekend. I thought Pac 10 would be better than they have shown. But in retrospect- Boise st. made Oregon look bad early in season. Oregon st, lost at home badly to Cincinnati early- both of those are very good teams- but the two Oregon schools were playing for the Rose bowl (conference championship) the last day of the season- maybe the Pac was overhyped.
December 31st, 2009 at 6:41 PM ^
I try not to use Bowl Season to make too many sweeping theories about conferences. These games can be so screwy with so many unique situations and contrasting motivational issues.
I mean, its great bragging rights and all. but, thats somethine else.
As far as the Pac 10 goes, I was disappointed that Oregon State looked so poor. Otherwise, nothing else has really surprised me about how the league's other bowl games went down. I really wish we could have seen Stanford play today with a healthy Andrew Luck.
Other than the Mountain West, has any one conference really stood out as doing well? This answer will likely change in the next 48 hours with the stakes going up with plenty of BCS league head to heads going.
December 31st, 2009 at 7:20 PM ^
And also dislike how so much is made of conferences during the basketball tourney.
It's matchups, motivation, and whether teams take the gameitself seriously or use it to prepare for the following season.
BUT, i would be nice to see the Big Ten kick some arse this year--and YUP I root for Ohio State and MSU as well.
December 31st, 2009 at 10:34 PM ^
Definitely. Matchups play a huge role. In the 2008 season we had trouble with mobile quarterbacks, but we shut Tebow down. He was a big old north to south runner that our defensive line had no problems with. By their standards he was just an undersized HB. If Tebow was more of speed guy that worked the edges that game could have gone entirely the other way. Plus of course the emotional impactof Lloyd retiring.
I think overall the Big Ten is strongest in the middle. When we face midranked teams with our midranks, our conference's emphasis on big, mean, linemen gives us an edge in the trenches most of the time. When we face top ranked teams with insane amounts of speed, spread formations, deep routes, etc, then things start to fall apart for us. In part because we lack the speed and in part because our players have simply never seen that style of play before. That's changing as we evolve, but overall it is all about the linemen.
Give a Big Ten team a team with a slightly undersized line and they'll maul it. Make that same team face a team with a really fast QB or a Percy Harvin type speed guy and that team begins to have trouble.
December 31st, 2009 at 7:31 PM ^
surveying conferences in bowl season is always tough, since the BCS slide always seems to affect one conference's matchups pretty severely.
the single team i have been impressed with so far is navy. i figured a decent big12 team with a month to prepare would fare well.
big day for the big10 tomorrow. can't stand to watch minny v isu right now. 2009 sucked, but that would not help.
January 1st, 2010 at 2:33 AM ^
I think that it is safe to say that Navy can no longer be thought of as a cupcake on the schedule. They just completed a 10 win season, that's pretty impressive. I enjoy watching Navy and that rushing attack, it fascinates me in a strange kind of way.
December 31st, 2009 at 8:01 PM ^
The only way to take heat off the Big Ten is the Big Ten needs to win bowl and out of conference games.
December 31st, 2009 at 8:08 PM ^
Minnesota isn't helping.
Iowa or Ohio State needs to win to help with the whole perception thing which I agree is very overrated.
December 31st, 2009 at 9:19 PM ^
10-14 with late in the 3rd. Iowa State's lead. Hope they can at least win and not humiliate the Big 10. I want all Big Ten teams to win, including all of the States.
Edit: Goddammit
January 1st, 2010 at 2:07 AM ^
I picked ISU :)
I figured that no bowl team could be worse than the LOLphers and while the Cyclones tried, they still could not reach the level of fail that Minne$ota did.
December 31st, 2009 at 8:10 PM ^
I really can't give an informed opinion about the PAC-10 in the bowls this year as Michigan doing poorly during the regular season left me too depressed to watch much other college football. However, I have really developed this absolute/(irrational?) hatred of Stanford and Jim Harbaugh because I want to stop all of this crazy Harbaugh to Michigan talk. It has exceeded my desire to see the SEC do poorly in bowl games. Anybody else have this specific/(crazy? irrational?) feelings about Stanford/Harbaugh?
December 31st, 2009 at 8:33 PM ^
I do have that specific hatred. Glad they lost.
December 31st, 2009 at 9:14 PM ^
college teams.
I'm no bandwagon fan. I'll watch all the Michigan games. But when other teams have a chance to do something and your team doesn't, it takes something out of watching the other games.
January 1st, 2010 at 2:04 AM ^
I too have the same hatred of Harbaugh, and it is not deterred by watching him play at U of M because I never did.
Being an OU fan and watching Harbaugh lose to the Sooners was almost as fun as watching Michigan in a bowl game. Landry Jones will be great there. Two really bad performances against two of the best defenses in the country (Texas and Nebraska, ugh) really hurt him statistically but he played quite well today. If Murray stays, they'll have a great offense with Broyles back. The defense is obviously quite good.
January 1st, 2010 at 11:54 AM ^
...I also think he's staying. He lost a lot of his speed when they bulked him up. OU tends to do that to their backs from what I understand.
Edit: Yoshi at the movies? I would +10000 you if I could! 3
January 1st, 2010 at 6:48 AM ^
I was a big fan of Harbaugh's years at UM in the 80's, and was mostly saddened by what I saw in Brian's post "Destroy Harbaugh," particularly comments like this one. Having read this, I was uncomfortable with "all of this crazy Harbaugh to Michigan talk" when it started sprouting up sometime around the U-IL game. IMO, if any part of what was in the comments is true, Harbaugh as HC would be a risk to a high-profile program such as that at UM. When Brian started discussing the conditions under which he would accept a third-year RR dismissal here and then signalled his acquiescence with Harbaugh (I don't remember where I saw this) I began to wonder if "all of this crazy Harbaugh to Michigan talk" was a wagon rolling down a hill. I'm banking on RR recruits to turn the show around and make the Harbaugh discussion a moot point before we are reduced to hoping that the Harbaugh we bring in is not like the one in the scary stories.
EDIT: I like the measured hint of scepticism Brian brings to this subject here as of Nov. 17. Key words:
Probably not something to consider seriously until we get a verdict on Rodriguez.
December 31st, 2009 at 8:22 PM ^
whoops...sorry for the double comment
January 1st, 2010 at 10:06 AM ^
The one thing about the Pac-10 is their bowl alliances/bowl games they are slated to play is pretty bad. You could make a case that of all the major conferences they have the worst bowl games.
The only team that gets to play on NY's Day is the Pac-10 champ in the Rose Bowl. The Big 10 gets 3 teams on NY's Day, the SEC has 4 (Cotton Bowl although it's not on NY's Day every year anymore - against the Big 12). The Big East and ACC get the Gator Bowl. Even the Chick fill-a-bowl on NY's Eve is a decent bowl for the ACC and SEC.
The Pac-10 is almost has two bowl match-ups against 'mid-majors' (the bowl games Cal and OSU played in). This year they had three bowl match-ups against Mid-majors when you add UCLA-Temple.
If I were the Pac-10 coaches I'd be all over the commissioner to try and get the Pac-10 teams slated to play in better bowl games.