Oregon football’s fallen off a cliff since Chip Kelly left, finishing 4-8 this season. You’d think the fate of its head coach would be front and center right now for the AD, but Stewart Mandel suggests he’s got bigger fish to fry.
I have no idea if that’s meant to be comforting, but if I’m Mullens’ boss, and things really are in limbo coaching wise, I think I’d be making a polite suggestion about looking into conference calling.
Filed under BCS/Playoffs, Pac-12 Football
Evidently Mike Leach isn’t the only Pac-12 coach having issues with Todd Graham’s sportsmanship.
Oregon coach Mark Helfrich wouldn’t specify what tactics the Ducks would use to keep the Arizona State Sun Devils from stealing signs on Saturday.
Last year the Ducks brought large white sheets to Arizona State and lined their sideline with them, hoping to obscure the view of the Sun Devils’ play signalers. Helfrich wouldn’t say if Oregon would be using those again this weekend.
“We’ll hopefully have something as effective this year,” he said.
Maybe they’ll fine the sheets.
Filed under Pac-12 Football
So let me extend my hearty condolences to all Stanford fans out there. Getting rolled like that isn’t pleasant. We should know.
And after I was so nice to post about their offensive line (which, admittedly, was pretty offensive last night). Don’t I feel foolish now.
On the other hand, maybe it’s my fault for being jealous. Um… did I mention how impressed I am with Josh Dobbs?
Filed under Pac-12 Football
A Shakespearean tribute to Stanford’s offensive line — as a Georgia fan, aren’t you jealous, too?
Filed under Pac-12 Football, Strategery And Mechanics
The Pac-12 announced its concerns about time demands on student-athletes yesterday, and while the cynic in me was ready to brush those aside as same old, same old (and even so, let’s not forget it’s just talk at this point), I was genuinely surprised to see the conference make this admission:
In that same vein, based on the conversations that Scott and his staff had with athletes, the Pac-12 report included a set of “important learnings applicable to future development of rules and policies on time demands.” Some of those are unsparing.
The conference acknowledges: “Academic sacrifices are being made. It is not uncommon for student-athletes to be forced to change their majors due to practice and competition schedules, either because they cannot schedule the classes and other requirements they need, or they cannot keep up with their academic demands due to their sport’s time demands. Student-athletes are also discouraged from taking certain majors from the outset due to their athletic demands. …”
“Many athletes told stories of changing majors, sometimes well into their academic careers, and not being able to graduate on time due to their sport’s time demands.”
Boy, I bet there are some irritated coaches this morning. Doesn’t Larry Scott understand the way the real world works?
Filed under Academics? Academics., Pac-12 Football
Today, in fun with numbers:
I never thought I’d live in a world where Jim Delany was a relative bargain.
Filed under Big Ten Football, It's Just Bidness, Pac-12 Football
The West Coast comes up a little bit short in the fan enthusiasm department this spring.
But let’s be fair: The Pac-12 will never be on equal footing when it comes to Tier 1 money … assuming all three conferences are in the same contract cycle … because of the difference in fan passion and market penetration for advertisers, and there is a very clear and recent example to illustrate this situation:
Spring game attendance.
It’s not the only measure of passion — and passion means ratings and market penetration and advertising dollars for the networks — but it’s a pretty darn good one.
Nobody should expect the Pac-12 to draw at SEC and B1G levels, but the difference is more striking than you might think…
Oregon scrimmages this weekend and should have the largest crowd in the conference, by a significant margin. I’ve included the Ducks below, even though it’s a projection, because it paints a more complete picture of the Pac-12’s spring attendance relative to the other conferences.
It would have been unfair to exclude the biggest crowd just because of timing.
But even with the Ducks, the Pac-12 has just two of the top-25 crowds … and seven of the bottom 10.
If the fans don’t care, the cable service providers won’t either.
Filed under Pac-12 Football
