Are USC's Struggles Really Due To An Improved Pac-10? I Say NO!

In trying to explain USC's disappointing season, which goes way beyond losing a ton of players to the NFL draft and both coordinators to Washington.  Carroll is claiming that the reason is that the rest of the Pac-10 has improved. This echoes what many western sportswriters have been claiming ... that this Pac-10 is the best and deepest that it has been in years , possibly ever. However, the media and fans should not let Carroll off the hook so easily.

Exhibit A

If USC's struggles are due to an improved Pac-10, how come USC has been less than impressive out of conference? USC went from blowing out Ohio State 32-3 to eking by them 18-15 thanks mostly to the Buckeyes' own incompetence. They also went from thrashing Notre Dame 38-3 to needing a defensive stop to preserve a 34-27 victory, and even their 56-3 against San Jose State was not nearly as impressive as the score indicates. Another thing about the Ohio State game: do not forget that the Buckeyes also lost a ton of players, including their top 2 WRs, top 2 RBs and left tackle.

Exhibit B

The evidence that the Pac-10 is improved is lacking. Or should I say that if it is improved, then it only means that the Pac-10 was really bad, no better than a good mid-major league like Conference USA, before this year. Again, look at their performances out of conference.

Arizona State: beat Idaho State and 6-4 Louisiana-Monroe , lost to 6-4 Georgia .

UCLA: beat San Diego State, 6-5 Kansas State , 5-5 Tennessee .

Washington: beat 7-4 Idaho , lost to 8-2 LSU and 6-4 Notre Dame .

Arizona: beat 7-2 Central Michigan and Northern Arizona, lost to 9-2 Iowa .

Oregon: beat 4-8 Purdue and 8-1 Utah , lost to 10-0 Boise .

Stanford: beat San Jose State, lost to 4-7 Wake Forest , 6-4 Notre Dame pending.

California: beat Eastern Washington, 2-7 Maryland , 5-5 Minnesota .

Washington State: beat 5-4 SMU , lost to 3-6 Hawaii and 6-4 Notre Dame .

Oregon State: beat Portland State and 4-6 UNLV, lost to 10-0 Cincinnati .

So, the best Pac-10 victories are over Louisiana-Monroe, SMU, Idaho, Central Michigan, Minnesota, Maryland, Purdue, Kansas State, Tennessee and Utah. Of those 5 are mid-majors, 5 are BCS conference schools that are not yet bowl eligible (Kansas State has 6 wins, but 2 of them to FCS schools, plus they lost to 5-5 Louisiana-Lafayette), and only one is ranked (Utah).

Meanwhile, with the exception of USC and UCLA, the Pac-10 blew their chances to win statement nonconference games. Arizona State lost to Georgia, Washington lost to Notre Dame, Arizona lost to Iowa, Oregon lost to Boise, Stanford lost to Wake Forest, and Oregon State lost to Cincinnati. Further, the Iowa, Boise and Cincinnati losses were by double digits, and further still the Pac-10 teams lost both legs of home-and-home series to Boise and Cincinnati.

Now it is not that the Pac-10 has been dreadful out of conference like the Big 12 this year or the Big 10 last year. Rather, it is that beating Louisiana-Monroe, SMU, Idaho, Central Michigan, Maryland, Purdue, Minnesota, Kansas State, Tennessee and #23 Utah merely represent at best a typical nonconference performance. This is a major issue for the Pac-10, as their claim to fame—especially against the SEC—is superior performance in nonconference games.

However, beating eight good teams out of conference (and this is with a rather charitable standard for "good" as it includes BCS conference teams with terrible records like Purdue and Maryland, and lower mid-majors like Idaho and Idaho, ranked 76, 78, 90 and 120 by Sagarin ) is in no way noteworthy.

As a matter of fact, the SEC equals that number even if you exclude Florida and Alabama from the discussion (7-3 Ohio, Arizona State, 4-5 North Carolina State, 3-6 Louisville, 5-4 Louisiana-Monroe, 7-3 West Virginia, Washington, Louisiana-Lafayette, 5-5 Texas A&M, 7-3 Troy) for 10 teams. Pac-10 fans may claim that I am including lower-mid majors and losing teams from BCS conferences to pad the SEC's case, but they are ignoring that without such considerations it is the Pac-10's Utah and Central Michigan versus the SEC's West Virginia and Ohio, a virtual wash. Even if you change it it to give the Pac-10 a maximum benefit (only ranked mid-majors and likely bowl teams) there is the Pac-10's Utah, Minnesota, Tennessee and Kansas State versus the SEC's West Virginia and Texas A&M.

And that's just the SEC, who could care less about nonconference games. Consider the ACC and leave off likely champion Georgia Tech. Their quality victories include BYU, Middle Tennessee State, Central Michigan, Kent State, Oklahoma, Central Florida, Marshall, Nebraska, East Carolina (twice), Indiana, Connecticut, Stanford and Pitt. That's 14 teams, with 3 of them ranked (#8 Pitt, #18 BYU, #25 Nebraska).

Even if you account for the ACC being a 12 team league by lopping off a good team and a bad one, you still have 11. And the ACC still has games against Georgia, South Carolina, Florida, and South Florida to go, and they will win 2 of those 4.

So, the idea that USC's struggles this year are due to a vastly improved Pac-10 has to be challenged. Either it isn't true and the Pac-10 is really no better than it generally is (with last year being a down year and this year being an average one) or it is true, meaning that the Pac-10 is a terrible football conference, so bad that even in one of its better years it is still worse than the ACC, which is primarily a basketball conference.

My position is the former. Where the Pac-10 clearly had a down year last year (2-6 against the Mountain West, only 5 bowl eligible teams), this year the Pac-10 is as strong as it generally is. Thus, this is clearly Pete Carroll's worst USC team since his first, which finished with a 6-6 record in 2001. Pac-10 fans should recall that 2001 was the year that Oregon went 11-1, Washington State 10-2, Stanford 9-3, UCLA 7-4, and Washington 7-6, Arizona 5-6, Oregon State 5-6 and Arizona State 4-7.

For Carroll to claim that the Pac-10 is anywhere near as tough this year as it was in 2001 - when 3 Pac-10 teams could have conceivably played for the national title and 2 Pac-10 teams would have easily gotten 2 teams in the BCS under this current format - was just as disingenuous as Carroll's asking Jim Harbaugh "what's your deal?" over that 2 point conversion. Carroll knows it, which is why he went on to allude that Stanford has better athletes than USC does.

Bottom line: the Pac-10 isn't that tough this year. Pete Carroll just wants you to think that it is so you won't ask him too many questions about the horrible coaching job that his staff has been putting in lately. Case in point: all those four and five star players at WR and RB and not a single one is among the better players in college football at his position. The top USC RB has 932 yards rushing, the top WR 688 yards. Now you know why Mark Sanchez left, and why Carroll did a lot more than say "what's your deal?" at Sanchez's press conference!