As we look ahead to the 2011 college football season, we take with us the lessons we learned from seasons past. We calculate, scrutinize, dissect and digest schedules, returning starters, coaching changes, injuries, and yes, even hunches, and spew it back in the form of how we think each of the 11 Division 1 FBS conferences -- and the independents -- will pan out by year’s end.
Of course, these are merely our opinions. Feel free, as we know you will, to disagree. We know that’s why you really come here anyway.
Here are our predictions for the Pac-12:
Ben Kercheval’s Pac-12 champion: Oregon
John Taylor’s Pac-12 champion: Stanford
*Ineligible for Pac-12 championship game and postseason bowl
Ben’s take
The North division belongs to Oregon unless it chooses to give it up. Don’t count out Stanford and Andrew Luck, for whom my man-crush has now reached paramount proportions (you’re still special too, Kellen Moore), but the Ducks run (or swim?) like a well-oiled machine.
Washington has been on the rise since Steve Sarkisian took over as coach. If the Pac-12 North wasn’t so top-heavy this year, I might have placed them higher, and I’m not as torn up about the loss of Jake Locker and its effects in the win/loss column. Oregon State, on the other hand, has quarterback Ryan Katz back for his second year, but the Beavers have some holes to fill with the losses of running back Jacquizz Rodgers and DT Stephen Paea.
Cal is a question mark and Washington State may be looking for a new coach after this season.
In the South, USC can thank the NCAA -- but mostly Reggie Bush -- for this one. The Trojans are talented enough behind quarterback Matt Barkley to win the much weaker division, but due to sanctions, they won’t be able to compete in the inaugural conference championship. That leaves Arizona State, who comes into 2011 with high expectations despite zero winning seasons since 2007. The Sun Devils return a hoard of starters and their schedule is attractive enough to merit a default Pac-12 South title.
Utah enters its first season in the Pac-12 with a group that features plenty of upperclassmen on both sides of the ball. Kyle Whittingham almost always has his guys ready to play, but how well will they do in a BCS conference week in and week out?
And Arizona? Fool me once, Mike Stoops, shame on you. Fool me for the past three seasons, shame on me. Rather than trying to predict where the Wildcats will finish in the Pac-12 this season, I’m more inclined to predict what week they’ll start crashing and burning.
(Writer’s note: it’s with those words that UA will win the Pac-12 South outright)
John’s take
That round-robin conference play in football the Left Coasters were so proud of? Gone. Replaced this year as, for the first time since the Big Five/Big Six/Pac-8/Pac-10 was originally formed way back in the late 1950s, the conference now known as the Pac-12 will hold a title game to crown its champion. And, much like its conference counterparts in the SEC, the power appears to lean severely toward one division.
In the Pac-12 North -- a much better name for a division than, say, Legends. Or Leaders (What were you thinking Big Ten?) -- there’s national title runner-up Oregon and the consensus No. 4 team in the country at the end of 2010, Stanford. In the Pac-12 South, there’s Utah, a Mountain West Conference transfer coming off a 10-win season in its old league. After the Utes, and if their adjustment to the “big boys” goes as well as they expect (I don’t), there’s, well, there’s... Arizona State? To me, the Sun Devils are the eligible team to beat in the South, at least until the Utes adjust and USC gets itself off NCAA sanctions after this season.
And, speaking of USC, I highly suspect in a way-too-giddy way the Trojans will win the inaugural South crown of the revamped league, leaving the conference to explain for an entire week how the best team in one of their newly-formed divisions will not play for the virginal Pac-12 crown.
That said, and with the subject of karmic justice broached -- yes, I will applaud heartily and loudly if/when USC wins the South -- there’s simply no way Stanford’s Luck comes back for another year to turn around and go into next April’s NFL draft empty-handed when it comes to team trophies. Too great of a player, too great of a storyline for that to happen. Well, that and the fact that the Cardinal is not only the best team in the conference, but one of the best teams in the country, period.
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More predictions: ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, C-USA, MAC, MWC, SEC, Sun Belt, WAC, Independents
