What’s Wrong With The PAC12

[twinkie13]

GREAT topic on 1st team this AM

Recruiting lacks....no REAL grinder until Cristobal got to Oregon.

Tua, a Hawaii kid went to Bama...NOT USC

LSU just nabbed the top player outta Utah in Ika

Recruits show up to these games and NOBODY is there

Is it a real problem?

 

[B.A.R.]

Very good subject Twinkie. This is one of the main reasons the Urban will dominate after his year off and arrival at USC. The scenario is somewhat like the B10 was back 7-8 years ago. Hopefully that helps elevate the conference in general.

 

[KJ]

Starts with the leadership. Commish, the HQ being in downtown SF, the costs associated with the entire leadership and ineptitude. Throw in how large an area the conference encompasses and how much population and realize...football isn't all that exciting when there are a million other things to do. It's a fun activity, not LIFE like it is to many people. Going skiing or boarding is more exciting to more people than watching a football game.

 

[twinkie13]

Very good subject Twinkie. This is one of the main reasons the Urban will dominate after his year off and arrival at USC. The scenario is somewhat likely

 

[M.W.]

GREAT topic on 1st team this AM

Recruiting lacks....no REAL grinder until Cristobal got to Oregon.

Tua, a Hawaii kid went to Bama...NOT USC

LSU just nabbed the top player outta Utah in Ika

Recruits show up to these games and NOBODY is there

Is it a real problem?

Clemson is starting to pull a lot of kids out of California.

 

[M.W.]

Starts with the leadership. Commish, the HQ being in downtown SF, the costs associated with the entire leadership and ineptitude. Throw in how large an area the conference encompasses and how much population and realize...football isn't all that exciting when there are a million other things to do. It's a fun activity, not LIFE like it is to many people. Going skiing or boarding is more exciting to more people than watching a football game.

Also, the population is too new and transient. A lot of people in PA, OH, GA, and ALA are 7th or 8th or 9th generation locals.

 

[AliShaheed]

Ok, long rant incoming...sorry for the rambling.

The answer? Get better coaches and better players. Simple! Right? No.

Now just back up for a second. This isn't really a new problem. The conference has been weak for the longest. But they had two powerhouses in SC and Oregon shouldering the load which obscured the the flaws of the rest of the conference. So then the PAC loses a HOF coach in Carrol. And then loses Chip who at his peak was the perfect fit at Oregon and had the program running like a well oiled machine. So now the two top coaches in the conference are...Chris Petersen? David Shaw? Big downgrade on and off the field. And both coaches are at programs with a limited ceiling for success.

But anyways...Carrol was a monster coach and recruiter but he was SC's 3rd choice and the whole thing was dumb luck on SC's part. While Carrol would've been successful at SC regardless (cause he's that good and he was a perfect cultural fit) he was also operating a program without a compliance department. Like, zero oversight. That wouldn't fly in 2019. Chip was also reaping the benefit of illegal recruiting tactics. Once that was exposed and the NCAA came calling...he bailed. Chip also had a generational talent in Mariota and the PERFECT qb to run his system for 3 years. And yet despite all of Oregon's success, it never extended much beyond their region. They never had the personnel in the trenches to match up with the country's elite. And more often than not they didn't have the personnel to match up with Stanford...the lone school in the conference committed to playing defense and running the ball. So, my long winded point is that the formula of SC's and Oregon's success isn't replicable in 2019. And falling ass backwards into a coach like Pete Carrol is like waiting for lighting to strike a 2nd time. In 2019 we know who the future star coaches are and they're paid top dollar by the elites before they even prove it on the big stage.

I think there is a major geographical road block for a lot of the PAC schools. Of course, we have to better define the definition of success as the goals for Wazzou are going to differ for SC. But with the exception of SC and maybe Oregon, nobody has had much success recruiting nationally. And that's a prerequisite for success in 2019. Look at bama, clemson, and osu, etc. and where they're recruiting from. The kids are coming from everywhere, not just regionally. Now, I think you can get by in some circumstances if your local and regional recruiting is very strong. But California is the only talent-rich state in the region and there's not enough volume to supply the rest of the conference. And even when SC was at its prime under Carrol they were relying very heavily on out of state superstars to round out their roster. Cali alone wasn't enough.

To make matters worse, I just recently saw a stat that ~75% of 4/5 star kids are leaving the state of California to play football elsewhere. Compare this stat from an earlier time period where the number was ~15%. As national recruiting grows, out of state schools are breaking down the barrier and grabbing a lot of top kids from California and even neighboring states. I'm seeing a much stronger talent pool in AZ this year and all of these kids seem to be looking nationally. How many of them are staying home to play for UA/ASU? Or staying nearby in SoCal? It's not looking good. Having these kids leave the west for B1G or SEC country is an absolute killer.

Why can't the PAC recruit nationally? Geographical roadblocks, lack of coaching star power, weak tradition, and lack of established in-roads into HS feeder schools located outside their region.

Washington and especially Wazzou, Oregon, and Oregon St. are in the middle of nowhere which makes unofficial visits difficult logistically and financially for kids from other regions of the country. It's also extremely difficult for family members to come watch them play in-person or even watch them on TV with the late kickoff times and lack of access to the conference tv network.

Stanford has done a great job but they're hamstrung by those pesky academic standards. But they've built a consistent winner with their defense/run first approach which hey...might be a good strategy for the rest of the conference to emulate?

As far as Utah goes...shockingly one of the best programs in the conference (with again, more of a defensive/run first mentality) as Wittingham does more with less. But Utah is not a big out of state draw for obvious reasons and their top talent will be tempted to head elsewhere. So like Stanford their success has a level of limitations.

Colorado...the early 90's is over and it's not coming back.

ASU...again, the modern football climate won't allow them to compete for a national championship like they did in mid 90's. And Herm Edwards????

UA...always thought that this program had some solid potential with what should be a really easy place to sell to recruits but they can never seem to get out of their own way. I've been consistently proven wrong with them.

Cal...I was encouraged by Wilcox's first year and what was a dramatically improved defense from where they had been over the last 5 years or so. Let's see what Wilcox can build up there.

UCLA...again, an encouraging first year and this is their time to strike with SC in the shitter but it's going to take Chip a few years to get his system/personnel into place. But he's also shown to be an indifferent recruiter and he has to be above board now so I'm not overly hopeful that he can replicate anywhere near the success he had at Oregon.

And then you have the national embarrassment that is the PAC conf champ game. And that most of the country doesn't receive the PAC 12 network. It's a minor issue in the grand scheme of things but they might wanna get those two issues fixed to improve the national reputation of the conference.

I guess the conclusion here is get better coaches and maybe you can overcome some of these roadblocks. A stylistic change (defense/run game) could help as well when playing OOC opponents. But you need absolute BEAST recruiters. SC is really their only hope but there's no evidence to suggest that they're willing to do what it takes to be a winner. Letting Helton remain after the abomination that was this past season tells you all need to know about their university leadership and financial situation as well as their desire to maintain an upward trajectory with the football program.

 

[B.A.R.]

Great post. It really covers it all.

 

[KJ]

Seeing this also reminds me that there's a different culture here as well. Clearly as MW said many are transients and already have other allegiances but there are still plenty of diehards and the schools are plenty large enough to have generational fan bases, some obviously older than others. But think about how easy it is in the Midwest, southeast, etc to actually go to road games in college for fans. Hop in a car drive a few hours and it's go time. That's just not feasible in the west. Most road trips are 1-2 day drives other than the rivals, makes week to week much less intense. In state rivalries are about all P12 has with a couple of exceptions (UW/Oregon really the only I can think of and the biggest cities in each state are only a couple hours drive apart)

 

[AliShaheed]

Seeing this also reminds me that there's a different culture here as well. Clearly as MW said many are transients and already have other allegiances but there are still plenty of diehards and the schools are plenty large enough to have generational fan bases, some obviously older than others. But think about how easy it is in the Midwest, southeast, etc to actually go to road games in college for fans. Hop in a car drive a few hours and it's go time. That's just not feasible in the west. Most road trips are 1-2 day drives other than the rivals, makes week to week much less intense. In state rivalries are about all P12 has with a couple of exceptions (UW/Oregon really the only I can think of and the biggest cities in each state are only a couple hours drive apart)

I think the onus is on the home fans to fill the stadiums.

I think there's great interest in all of the PAC teams with the exception of maybe Stanford and Cal (ironically let's put the conf championship game in the one area where nobody gives a fuck about cfb) and people will show up IF you're winning...but on the flip side they'll be very quick to bail on the team and find something else to do if the program is losing. It's not the midwest or down south where fans will pack the stadium whether you're 10-0 or 5-5.

I think this is really more of an issue with the LA programs because the stadiums are so out of the way. For SC their fanbase stronghold is in OC. So the idea of driving 1-2 hours with traffic to a shitty part of town to watch a shitty football team in an empty shitty stadium is just not appealing. It's easier to just watch at home or head out for the night. For UCLA you're talking a 45 min drive from CAMPUS so forget about getting students to show up let alone alumni or casual fans far less connected to the university. But yeah, when you flip on the tv and see an empty, pin drop quiet stadium for the conferences flagship program it looks pretty awful.

 

[wiseplayer]

Pac 12 is become a lesser AAC and little better than the MAC.

 

[AliShaheed]

Just looking at it now the top 5 recruits from last years AZ class all left the conference. The highest rated recruit that stayed in-state was #18 to ASU. Pretty amazing.

 

[M.W.]

The bottom line is that the PAC schools don't care about football. The two schools that should be leading the way don't even have football stadiums.

 

[TahoeLegend]

Excellent write-ups by all concerned.

One of the big shocks to me when I moved to California was that high school football is all but ignored by the press and public, and college football is just one of many, many things students and alums have on their list of things to do. Fans are not live and die with wins and losses like they are in bible thumper country and the deep south (that may be redundent).

If your teams loses, so what. Surfing and skiing will still be good the next day and the parties and concerts will be rolling.

As long as they have the current commissioner--by far the worst conference commissioner in the history of college football--they will continue to descend, but at some point he will get fired and they will be run in a competent manner.

And USC will be back. It won't take much. When those things happen the conference will rise again, but football will never be as important to fans and students on the West coast as it is in areas where it is the only thing standing between people and boredom so deep they turn to drugs or suicide.

 

[AliShaheed]

but football will never be as important to fans and students on the West coast as it is in areas where it is the only thing standing between people and boredom so deep they turn to drugs or suicide.

This is such a shockingly ignorant statement that I don't even know where to begin. I really hope that you were at least being somewhat facetious. Not only is it inaccurate and condescending but it's completely irrelevant to the subject of the Pac 12 getting better at football. It's just a sour grapes rationalization for why the PAC is struggling to compete.

Also, I don't know why but much of this thread seems to be viewed through the prism of SC and the city of LA. Their specific struggles and fan interest are being projected onto the rest of the conference. But there are 11 other schools in the conference and many of them have very dedicated fanbases and aren't located near the beach (SC isn't really near the beach either as long as we're being accurate ) and all have their own unique aspects of campus life. All campuses have parties. All campuses have drugs. All campuses have issues concerning mental health and depression irrespective of their proximity to the beach. That's pretty standard across the board. I honestly don't know if fan attendance is down throughout the PAC or if we're just discussing lack of attendance at the LA stadiums. But the reasons why SC/UCLA attendance is down has already been discussed in this thread.

Also interesting that everything outside the west is an apparent hell hole yet so many of the west coast's top recruits are fleeing their beachfront mansions and ski lodges and flocking to these destitute cities and campuses in droves.

 

[AliShaheed]

Maybe Urban Meyer can land the newly available water polo gig at SC. That university really seems to stay in the news over dumb shit.

Also, was Kingsbury going to the coach-in-waiting after Helton's contract was up? That would've been yet another destructive hire.

 

[B.A.R.]

Maybe Urban Meyer can land the newly available water polo gig at SC. That university really seems to stay in the news over dumb shit.

Also, was Kingsbury going to the coach-in-waiting after Helton's contract was up? That would've been yet another destructive hire.

Some said that about Kliff Bar... I still hold the Urban Meyer ticket there and have since well before he resigned at OSU. He's gonna be a god there. The Phil Jackson of college football...(pick the right spots as to shine).

 

[AliShaheed]

Some said that about Kliff Bar... I still hold the Urban Meyer ticket there and have since well before he resigned at OSU. He's gonna be a god there. The Phil Jackson of college football...(pick the right spots as to shine).

Anything can happen, but other than wishing for it to be true and throwing darts at the wall I don't see what evidence would lead one to think that this is some sort of probability. I could give a more logical argument that Urban won't coach at SC vs him coaching at SC.

Now the water polo head gig...I can def see that coming to fruition.

But Urban will be the next Gruden...any time a high profile gig opens up his name is going to ring out across the internets.

 

[B.A.R.]

The reason I wish it is true is strictly for the money making opportunity for us bettors. There is plenty of evidence. He has left a job before with similar reasons under similar circumstances (sleeping with co-eds to his OSU issues as well) to get away from the heat. He's a compulsive liar and we all know that. So, the retirement thing gets laughed at for good reason. He likes to settle into 'good' situations. Remember, those 06-07 Gators teams were built by the Zooker, not Urban. He was merely the coach that got them to the summit (and much credit to that). We know he spent that year doing broadcast work scouting the conference and walked into a perfect situation at OSU. Now ...he can go feast on a conference with no real formidable obstacles at a University that recruits flock to(just like OSU). He'll walk into a bevy of talent and energize the fanbase immediately. The pac12 might be weaker now than even the big10 was when he went to OSU. It's really the perfect situation.

 

[B.A.R.]

Now, another dream job like ND could be an obstacle, no doubt.

 

[AliShaheed]

The reason I wish it is true is strictly for the money making opportunity for us bettors. There is plenty of evidence. He has left a job before with similar reasons under similar circumstances (sleeping with co-eds to his OSU issues as well) to get away from the heat. He's a compulsive liar and we all know that. So, the retirement thing gets laughed at for good reason. He likes to settle into 'good' situations. Remember, those 06-07 Gators teams were built by the Zooker, not Urban. He was merely the coach that got them to the summit (and much credit to that). We know he spent that year doing broadcast work scouting the conference and walked into a perfect situation at OSU. Now ...he can go feast on a conference with no real formidable obstacles at a University that recruits flock to(just like OSU). He'll walk into a bevy of talent and energize the fanbase immediately. The pac12 might be weaker now than even the big10 was when he went to OSU. It's really the perfect situation.

I will say that if you've been fading SC since the Kiffin era then you've been doing very well for yourself from a monetary perspective. I think SC is a better moneymaker in their current and perpetually overinflated role as a gutless, poorly coached team vs having to pay an astronomical premium should Urban set up shop and create a monster. Since the Carrol era, look at their preseason rankings relative to their end of season rankings. There is no better time than now.

A lot of your reasoning seems fueled by emotion which detracts from an argument that might otherwise contain logical, objective points. The 'sleeping with coeds' stuff has been said about every fanbase's rival coach since the beginning of college football fandom. It's silly and not based on anything factual that I'm aware of (feel free to correct me here). Your feelings on Urban being a dishonest person doesn't lend any credence as to why he'd land at SC specifically. Unless SC is a unique college football job that requires liars and immoral people. But as it relates to your point of dishonesty regarding Urban's stated feelings on retirement...the issue isn't whether or not Urban will coach again, but rather will he land in Los Angeles and why?

What we can agree on from your argument is that SC has a rich football tradition, is located in a recruiting hot bed, and the PAC 12 is ripe for scorched earth level domination. But I don't know if these are reasons enough to feel that Urban to SC is a mere formality.

My rambling stream of thought as to why Urban/SC might not be likely to happen:

-The university itself has been plagued with one embarrassing scandal after another. Some of them financially costly. There's an interim president and an overall lack of leadership. It's a clown show administration. The university might not want to go all-in on a guy like Urban when they're in a particularly vulnerable position. Likewise, Urban might not want to go all-in on a university that simply cannot get out of it's own way.

-Zero precedent for the athletic dept making splashy football hires. Zero precedent for elite coaches flocking to SC for HC openings. Remember when Tom Herman to SC was a lock? It just may not be as plum of a gig as people think it is. The administration may not care enough about football to do what's necessary to become a powerhouse (grater emphasis on academic ranking in recent years) or it may be that they simply do not have the financial resources to attract/hire elite coaches. Like I said, some of those scandals really hit SC in the wallet. To the extent that those payouts affect the athletic budget I do not know. But it doesn't help. Now if SC brings in a brash new AD from outside the Trojan-only circle jerk and is hellbent on making big changes...then I might readjust my position on this.

-LA isn't the midwest and it's not SEC country. I've lived there and have spent a lot of time at both LA schools. I love it there but It ain't for everyone. There is an issue of cultural fit. Urban can live anywhere in the world and yet he chooses to make his primary residence in Ohio. There is something that keeps him there. Probably a lot of things.

-Among those things...Urban's entire family lives in Ohio. His kid plays baseball at Cincinnati. His grandchildren are in Columbus and he has a son-in-law on the OSU football staff. Are they all coming to LA with him? Or maybe it's a complete non-factor and Urban and the wife will bounce to LA on their own.

-If Urban was THE GUY for SC then why not hire him now? If you're really serious about this and have the money to do it then you buy out Helton this very second and go get your man before the ND job opens up. You also do it before Helton does further damage to the program.

-We mentioned the possibility of Kingsbury having been the coach-in-waiting. Obviously you don't bring in Kingsbury if you have Urban in your back pocket.

-Why would Urban leave a better job in OSU (where he had the program humming) to rebuild SC? The only answer that makes sense here would be possible strained relations with the university. But if the situation at OSU was so intolerable then wouldn't Urban completely disassociate himself from OSU instead of taking a job as an associate AD? I think there is a legit issue between Urban and President Drake but my guess is that Drake will be a goner pretty soon.

-Urban has mentioned he would only coach if he has his support staff in-place. He just set up the whole Ryan Day transition thing in order to maintain continuity and to keep his support staff at OSU. So he sets this up along with his AD gig only to rip the OSU football staff a year later and bring them with him to LA? Certainly not impossible, but a ballsy move nonetheless.

-Health issues. Do they get better? Worse? He was visibly unwell throughout last season. You can't throw $70 million at a coach who is keeling over on the sidelines. I know some people believe that he's faking which doesn't make any logical sense to me. What is the motivation for doing such a thing? I get it if you don't like the guy and you feel he's really mean or a liar or whatever. But faking this whole thing would cross over into the territory of a serious mental illness.

 

[B.A.R.]

Good posts, lots to answer there...which I will when I have access to something other than mobile next week. :shake: