Pac-12 Preview: How the Teams Finish Up

We are about 10 days from the beginning of the college football season. Kickoff can not get here soon enough for us fans, alumni, and writers. Out here in the Pac-12 Conference it'll be your typical dog eat dog world. Many people believe the conference is down due to all the new quarterbacks that'll be starting in 2016. However, most people are not looking at that aspect. Most fans just want to know where their teams will finish in the conference. I'm here to put all that to rest.


Pac-12 North
1. Stanford
2. Washington State
3. Oregon
4. Washington
5. Oregon State
6. California


This will be Stanford's division to lose. They have Christian McCaffrey, David Shaw, and the experience of winning conference titles. With all those things going for them, the Cardinal should be in line for another division title and possible Rose Bowl berth. When you get to Oregon and the Washington schools it gets interesting.

I think Washington State is the better of all three teams. They have the better quarterback in Luke Falk and better weapons around him. Washington is a close second to the Wazzu, but the Huskies have something to prove to me. They have good talent for sure, but they haven't won anything. They are coming off a 7-6 season, so all this hype may be a bit of an overreach. Stayed tuned.

Oregon could be a sleeper to win the division, but I am down on the Ducks. For the second straight year they have a graduate transfer player in Dakota Prukop. Can Oregon ever get back to developing a quarterback like they did with Marcus Mariota? The Ducks do have running back Royce Freeman which will help take pressure off Prukop. Once again. Stayed tuned to what is happening in Eugene.

Let's fly south next.

Pac-12 South:

1. UCLA

2. Utah

3. USC

4. Arizona

5. Arizona State

6. Colorado

The South will be a battle between UCLA and Utah. Many people like USC, but they have to show me that they are for real. UCLA has Josh Rosen and bevy of talented running backs to make life miserable for their opponents. Watch Soso Jamabo and Nate Starks for the Bruins.

Utah will be in the mix for the South title because they probably have the best offensive and defensive lines in the entire conference. That is where they will be solid. They are replacing Travis Wilson and Devontae Booker on offense, so that'll be something to watch with the Utes. Can Joe Washington step up and replace Devontae Booker at running back? Who will step up at quarterback for the Utes?

At the end of the day, I believe the Bruins come through and win the South title. They don't have to play Oregon or Washington. They get USC and Utah at home.

In the Pac-12 Championship game it'll be Stanford and UCLA. UCLA has some very good talent, but they lack experience. Stanford has Christian McCaffrey, David Shaw, a good, tough offensive line, and great experience in big games. Stanford wins this game 45-21.

Image: google 



 

Does the Pac-12 Make the College Football Playoff in 2016?

We are two weeks out from the beginning of the college football season. The other thing that gets discussed is who will qualify for the college football playoff in 2016. The Pac-12 is not getting a lot of talk in terms of getting into the playoff. Why?


The Pac-12 has been arguably one of the top two football conferences the last few seasons. The SEC is still considered the King of the Hill in college football with good reason, but the Pac-12 will not be right behind them this season or even next. The conference is going through a change at the most important position on the field. Quarterback turnover will be affecting the Pac-12 this year.


Arizona State, California, Oregon, Oregon State, Stanford, Utah, and USC will be undergoing the change under center. With those concerns with some of the conference powers the media has eased off on pronouncing any team from the Pac-12 to be playoff worthy.


The other aspect that gets forgotten by many people is that the Pac-12 plays a nine game conference schedule. By playing this type of conference schedule, the Pac-12 puts themselves at a disadvantage compared to the SEC who plays an eight game schedule and gets one extra cupcake of a game during the year.

By not getting one of those extra games against a lower division opponent or weaker Power 5 opponent the Pac-12 puts another potential loss on their playoff teams record. Having that possibility gives plenty of reason in the minds of plenty of people about how the Pac-12 doesn't belong. The irony is that a potential playoff team from the Pac-12 with two losses doesn't mean that they aren't worthy of a birth in the playoff.

The only conference getting the benefit of the doubt with two losses is the SEC. They have built up plenty of benefit from dominating the national championship count.

That thought may bug many people in the Pac-12, but it is simply the truth.

The other issue with getting to the playoff for the Pac-12 is the starting times for their games. 50-60% of the country is asleep already by the time games start out here. The television contract that the Pac-12 has is not the greatest and basically dictates when teams play. If the conference wants to get paid, this is what they have to do.

Larry Scott said as much when asked at Arizona State/Arizona baseball game.

"If we want to get paid, we play when the networks tell us. It simply is what we have to do." Scott explained.

Finally, the Pac-12 is a carnivorous type of football conference. They beat up on each other with conference play. Any team can beat any team on any given Saturday. There really isn't a bye week in terms of competition in the Pac-12. Ask anybody who pays attention to the Pac-12 which means you have to talk to somebody from the West Coast. East Coast people really don't care about what happens out here. Not even sure they know what is west of Arkansas.

With all these things going on with the Pac-12 Conference in football, they will be left out of the playoff for a second straight year in 2016.

Image: Google

USC Names Max Browne as Their Starter for 2016

For Clay Helton getting his team ready for the huge opener against defending National Champion Alabama is something he has been working on since the game was announced. Today, he took another step in that direction by naming Max Browne as the starting Trojan quarterback.

Max Browne is a kid who had been patiently waiting his turn behind three year starter Cody Kessler. Now he gets his shot on the biggest stage possible. He is two weeks away from looking at the defensive line of the Crimson Tide coming at him full force.  

Will Browne be able to handle the pressure that will be thrown his way on September 3?


I believe he will once the 'Bama game is over. Alabama is on a whole different level than anything he'll face in Pac-12 this year.


If he doesn't have success, it will be looked at as he was up against the number one team in the country. If he has success, even the slightest bit of success, the media will anoint him the next great Trojan quarterback.


He knows what the expectations are at USC and has found a level of comfort in knowing what is expected.


"You know what you are getting into when you come to 'SC." Browne said before being announced the starter.


The bonus in going with Max Browne is that he is in year four and they are all alongside Clay Helton. Browne has a sense of familiarity with what Coach Helton is trying to do with the Trojan offense.


Browne is not a mobile type of quarterback. He's more of the classic drop back passer who is not afraid of looking down field for a big play. Browne is a 6'5", lumbering type of quarterback with a big arm.


The downside to him is that he won't be running around and away from pressure. It'll make an easy target for opposing defenses to hone in on.


For Browne to be successful in the Pac-12 he's going to have to get rid of the ball fairly quickly. Helton will have to have Browne do what Tom Brady does. Get that ball out to guys like Adoree Jackson and the other athletes that USC has to take the pressure off of him.


This is only the first step for Max Browne, so time will tell. The Trojans do have the toughest football schedule in college football this year, so the learning curve for Browne will have to be very short.


The success Max Browne has on the field will have a connection with the success the Trojans have in the win column in 2016. No pressure for a first time starter. None.




Twitter: pigskinopinion
Email: pigskinopinion@gmail.com or mike.wilson@campuspressbox.com

What The Phoenix Suns Should Do With Their Head Coaching Position

Coaching at any level can be something that is frustrating, exciting, and uncertain for the people who do it as a career. You have to be able to deal with egos the size of California, put your players in position to win the game, and deal with fans who can be finicky to put mildly. However, when you are an NBA head coach all those things you deal with are magnified by 100 times. Earl Watson is in the middle of all this with the Phoenix Suns.

Earl Watson is in the middle of a situation that no coach wants to be in. Watson took over for Jeff Hornacek who was fired amongst a multitude of issues that affected the team internally and on the court. Is Watson going to be able to get rid of the “interim” label in the off season? That is a legitimate question for the organization heading into the summer of 2016.

What has Early Watson been able to do to earn the job? Well, if you take a look at the Suns situation in terms of wins and losses he has not done much. His record since taking over for Jeff Hornacek is a paltry 6-22 and that equals out to a winning percentage of 21%. That doesn’t get anybody hired, but it certainly gets somebody shown the door at the end of the season. Professional sports is win/lose business, coaches know this, but sometimes the wins don’t come because of other outside forces that the coaches can’t control.

A season ending injury to starting point guard Eric Bledsoe practically ended the Suns season. Bledsoe had a torn meniscus in his knee 31 games in and that gave the Suns no chance at getting back to the playoffs. Not that they had a chance anyways.

One other item that has not helped Earl Watson was the Suns mistake of keeping disgruntled forward Markieff Morris for over half the season. Once the Suns let Jeff Hornacek go, Earl Watson made a quick announcement that Morris would be a go-to player for the team. Really? This malcontent would be someone that the organization would rely on for scoring and even stability? Big mistake, huge mistake. Even though Watson made the statement, I am not even sure he believed what he was saying to the public about Morris. It was purely a move to see if Morris would stop his petulant, childish behavior. It worked for a little bit and by that I mean about 24 hours. Morris was not a good locker room guy, he was immature, and was only looking out for his own self interests. Team was not a word that Markieff Morris was accustomed to using. In the end, Morris was shipped out of town to the Washington Wizards. I simply found it amazing that the Phoenix Suns found someone to take Morris.

What has Earl Watson done that will keep him as the coach of the Phoenix Suns? Good question. According to many of the players, namely Tyson Chandler, he has brought accountability and a calming presence to the Sun’s locker room. With a young squad that is important because Watson can show the young players what it means to be a pro and direct them in a positive way when the players do something negative on the court. Young players today need a bit more understanding today than they have in the past and Earl Watson provides that empathetic tone for the Sun’s players.

Bottom line, does Watson stay on as the head coach? I think he does because the Sun’s organization has to be a little honest with themselves in terms of whom out of the possible coaching candidates will come to Phoenix. Tom Thibodeau isn’t coming here. His personality won’t work here. Young guys don’t respond to task masters very well or they tolerate them in the beginning, just to tune them out after they tire of the yelling or screaming the coach does. The second thing is that Watson isn’t acting like an interim coach. The way he talks and acts is one of a guy who is planning to stay long term with the organization. He talks about “embracing the process”. Most coaches are not talking about process if they think they are only going to be around a few months, so my thinking is that the Phoenix Sun’s need to keep Earl Watson and let him prove his metal over the course of a full season or two.

Is Robert Sarver the Problem For The Phoenix Suns?

Whether or not an organization succeeds or fails depends on any number of factors in the NBA. There are teams that players want to play for and then there are teams that players try to avoid like the plague. Right now the Phoenix Suns are one of those teams that players are avoiding. Phoenix should be a destination spot for free agents and rookie draft picks, but the franchise has fallen on hard times.

Many people want to speculate on why the Suns are so bad and they want to blame ownership for the recent seasons of losing, but let’s face it Suns fans, the reason behind the losing is pretty simple. The Suns don’t have the players to win. The players are not that good.

When your best player just may be damaged goods that is a problem. Eric Bledsoe, who is in the middle of a five year-62 million dollar deal, has been on the disabled list since early in the 2015-2016 and his date to return to the Suns is still unknown.

With so much youth on this team with Alex Len, Devin Booker, T.J Warren, Brandon Knight, but not enough veteran leadership to guide them through a tough 82 game NBA season, this past season was a disaster. With youth comes immaturity and the Suns had plenty of that in Markieff Morris. Morris was a cancer in the locker room ever since the Sun’s traded his twin brother Markus Morris to the Detroit Pistons last summer. With a guy like Morris in the Suns locker room and the plethora of young players the Suns had to do something and bring some type of veteran leadership into the fold.

Enter P.J. Tucker, new center Tyson Chandler, Ronnie Price, Jon Leuer, Mirza Teletovic, and Sonny Weems. Veteran guys that one would think could help solve the issues that come along with youthful players.

Think again.

The Suns got absolutely nothing from the veterans they chose to bring in. In fact, I’ll make the argument that the veteran players helped exacerbate the problem by not sitting Markief Morris down and letting him know that there is a certain way you act as a professional athlete. Not sure if Morris would have listened to them, but the effort to correct bad professionalism should have been addressed by the players.

When the Suns lost to the lowly Philadelphia 76ers what did the management think was the correct move? It didn’t have anything to do with the players. It had everything to do with the coaches. Yes, the coaches. The guys that can’t shoot, pass, or dribble the ball during the game. The Suns released assistant coaches Jerry Sichting and Mike Longabardi who are both well respected, and both have championship rings. Sound move right? Not in the least. The two guys who know how to win on the highest level were shown the door.

To management, it was a coaching problem and not a player problem. Not to long after these assistants were fired, head coach Jeff Hornacek was given his walking papers. Coaches can only do so much in preparations for a game.

It’s the players that have to execute the game plan and play the game.

In the end, the Suns have to get better players for this franchise. Like I said earlier, Eric Bledsoe, is the best player on the squad and he is currently injured. Devin Booker has shown some promise, but that may just be it for the Suns. They missed the playoffs for the sixth straight year this past season and have to contend with being in the lottery and bringing even more youth and inexperience onto this team. The key will be what changes they will make with their veteran players. Somehow, someway the Suns have to get a better mix of vets and youth onto this team, otherwise, it will just be another long season of losing for a once proud franchise.

Pac-12 Football News

During this time of year, college football fans are wanting any news that they can get on their favorite teams or conference. The Pac-12 is no different. There are a lot of questions for the Conference of Champions going into 2016, quarterback is certainly one of them.... for more information on your favorite Pac-12 team go to www.campuspressbox.com


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Email me: mike.wilson@campuspressbox.com

Is College Basketball Losing It's Appeal?

March Madness. All you have to do is say those two little words and you conjure up memories for most red-blooded Americans who like to watch college basketball. When I think of college basketball I remember watching The Big East Conference or at the time the Pac-10 Conference game of the week every Saturday when I was a teenager. I could look at most teams and name just about every player on most rosters or at the very least be familiar with all the players names. Oh, how times have changed.

I don’t get the same amount of joy watching college basketball anymore. To me, it’s a difficult game to watch. People are going to say “the game is pure” or “they play it because they love the game” or “it’s the same game it’s always been.” You want to know what I say to that? To put it appropriately, I call bs.

The product is not very good at all in my opinion. People like a good product on the court or field when they go watch their teams, but right now they are not getting their monies worth.

Everybody knows that the NBA is a player’s league, well, NCAA college basketball is a coach’s league and let’s just say that the coaches are micromanagers of their players. Every possession is grinded out like they are trying to figure out if there was somebody on the grassy knoll. The players are not allowed to freelance to much because that means lost possessions to the coach and it probably means that the player will find himself on the end of the bench or seated right next to their coach getting an ear full of discipline, so to the player it doesn’t benefit them in any way to play a little loose and free. The free movement of basketball isn’t there for college basketball because the college coaches want to play the game in a phone booth and not out in the open like it should be.

After watching Pac-12 (Pac-10 as a youngster) basketball all my life and in person the last couple of seasons it is readily apparent that players don’t have the same skill set as they once had. Oh, sure, there are the occasional anomalies that come with that ability to do everything, such as Jahlil Okafor, but for the majority of players coming into college basketball they have one skill they can do. Some have good ball handling, some are decent shooters, some rebound or play solid defense, but there are not players that leave college being better players than they were when they came into college basketball. Why?

Let’s be honest about what has happened in big time Division One college basketball. The one and done player is killing the game. Many of these players are just not ready to play on the Division One level, but have talent so the coaches are pressured to play these kids and suffer through the growing pains. The other aspect of college basketball is that it’s just a minor league for the NBA. When players have the opportunity to leave after a semester in college, the product on the floor will suffer greatly. These players are not ready for the professional ranks after four months in college.

College basketball is to the point of being unwatchable to many sports fans like myself. It’s slow, can be ugly, and it is unskilled. For the people that tell me that a 50-48 defensive ball game is fun to watch, I just roll my eyes. If I want to see two people mugging each other I will just watch the next episode of “Law and Order”.

There are wrestling matches in the paint, secondary defenders getting charges off stupid calls, guards playing hand to hand combat at the top of the key, officials with quick whistles slowing the game down to a crawl, and cutters trying to avoid collisions. When you add all this up, it’s not a shock as to why the visual of college basketball is so brutal these days.

“We are getting the game we deserve right now. College basketball is antiquated in the way they do things.” Said Jay Bilas, ESPN analyst and former Duke Blue Devil.

For the average fan, college hoops is boring to watch and the NCAA is not willing to change many things up to improve the product on the floor.  

The NBA went through some changes to make the game more visually appealing to their fans. The fans and even people inside the NBA made complaints about how the game became ugly, so the NBA listened to them and over the last 20 years of so, the NBA has been a leader in making their game better. They have cracked down on hand-checking, flopping, backing players down in the lane, and for those actions, it is why the NBA is more visually appealing to fans now. It’s certainly more appealing to me.

The NCAA is suffering through a time where people are not paying attention to college basketball like they used to. Overall attendance is down, ratings are down, and scores are down. Teams are averaging about 67.2 points per game which is the lowest average total since 1952 which tells me that college basketball players don’t have the offensive repertoire as they once did. They are certainly more athletic, but that doesn’t mean they are better overall players than their predecessors. Attendance is also down at college basketball games. Overall attendance is down for the seventh straight year and down roughly 360,000 people. In 2006 college basketball attendance averaged 5,237 people and now it averages 4,817. That may not seem like a lot, but to a school to lose roughly 500 paid people to a game means lost revenue that is difficult to recover. What is driving these fans away? Are people being turned off by one and done players? The drop in skilled players? Maybe. To go along with the drop in attendance, the television ratings have also been declining.  ESPN which carries a ton of games has had their viewing of college basketball drop by six percent in the last year. Has conference realignment affected this? I would say yes because the new conferences have taken away some very good rivalries which mean a lot to the fans of those schools, but to presidents of those schools it’s all about the money. Some type of change has to be made for college basketball to return to what it once was and the NCAA has to spearhead that change.

What can be done though? It’s not like the NCAA is an organization that likes to change things. It almost seems like the NCAA have to be dragged kicking and screaming toward that change for it to actually occur.

The NCAA has changed the shot clock from 35 to 30 seconds to help out scoring, but when there are a lack of shooters in college basketball that point disappears. As I stated earlier, scoring is down to lowest levels in about 50 years, so what other changes does the NCAA need to look at to increase their ratings and slumping attendance?

Here are just a few ideas.

1. Take away the possession arrow and replace it with the jump ball. I have hated this possession arrow rule since its inception, so I wouldn’t mind seeing it disappear.
2. Move the three point line to the NBA distance which would open up the court for penetration.
3. Get rid of the one-and-one free throw and make every foul the double bonus. This would eliminate the constant fouling at the end of many games.
4. Make the 10 second backcourt time limit eight seconds.
5. Put in the defensive three second rule.

Take those for whatever you want, but I think they would better the college game. It would open things up, provide for more movement, and make players play some better defense. No matter how much the NCAA likes to throw out the student/athlete story line, the NCAA is a business and if the product is inferior, the NCAA has to step in and improve it. I’m not saying that change will come anytime soon, but it needs to happen otherwise people will continue to walk away from college basketball.

Follow on Twitter: @pigskinopinion

Email: mike.wilson@campuspressbox.com