College Football: AP Voters Not Watching Pac-12 Football Thus No More West Coast Bias?

Somewhere during the 2011 season, traditional sports logic and college football reasoning has been lost between the Associated Press Top 25 and the USA Today’s Coaches’ Poll.

The final 2011 regular season college football polls released Sunday shows that the “experts” fans look to for football guidance might be drawing names out of a hat to pick their college football Top 25.

Week 15, the final week of the regular season in college football, should have been the easiest week of the season for voters to fill out their Top 25 polls. Only 22 college football games were played during the final weekend meaning of the 120 FBS teams 44 were in action. 11 games featured ranked teams. 5 of the 11 games featured ranked teams playing against each other.

16 teams that played were ranked in the week 14 AP Top 25 Poll. Of the 16 ranked teams that played five lost. Per the rankings, three of the five ranked teams that lost were “upset” by lower ranked teams. No ranked team that lost was defeated by an unranked team.

Traditionally this would mean that three ranked teams would drop in the polls and the three previously lower ranked teams would move up in the polls. Teams on a bye would have the opportunity to be jumped in the polls by teams playing one extra conference championship game, especially schools on a bye not playing in the conference championship game, right? Guess again college football fans.

In week 14 Stanford was No. 4, Oregon was No. 8, and USC was No. 9 in the AP. The AP was so impressed with Stanford and USC’s bye that in the final polls they kept Stanford at No. 4, jumped USC to No. 5, and placed Oregon at No. 6.

Voters rendered Oregon’s Pac-12 championship game win over UCLA useless.

Voters may have forgotten that Oregon beat Stanford November 12, just four weeks ago, 53-30 at Stanford Stadium. The following week USC went on the road and upset the Ducks at Autzen Stadium 38-35.

One can see an argument being made for USC being a Top 10 team. They have quality wins over Oregon and - Notre Dame? USC’s two losses have been to unranked 6-6 Arizona State 43-22 and to No. 4 Stanford 56-48. USC’s last regular season game was a victory over UCLA 50-0.

Are the AP voters are telling America that they are more impressed with USC’s 50-point win over UCLA than Oregon’s 49-31 win over UCLA in the Pac-12 championship game? Yes, they are. They are also telling college football fans that two teams in the Pac-12 are better than the team representing the conference in the Rose Bowl.

According to the AP, Stanford with a quality win over USC, Oregon with a quality win over Stanford, and USC with a quality win over Oregon is enough to rank the teams 4-6 in the final regular season poll. None of the teams have quality non-conference victories to help support their positions.

Oregon played four ranked teams during the season and finished with a 2-2 record against those teams. One of the ranked teams the Ducks beat was Arizona State. ASU finished the season unranked with a 6-6 record. Another way to look at it is Oregon went 1-2 against quality opponents during the 2011 season.

Stanford also played four ranked teams during the season. Two of those teams, 7-5 University of Washington and 8-4 Notre Dame are not ranked in the final AP Poll. Stanford went 1-1 against quality opponents during the 2011 season; beat USC, lost to Oregon.

Again, USC played two ranked teams and finished with a 1-1 record; lost to Stanford, beat Oregon.

Don’t look for wisdom with The USA Today Coaches’ Poll because that poll is no better than the AP. Due to the fact that USC cannot participate in post season games because of NCAA sanctions, the Coaches Poll has completely left USC off the ballot.

USC is deserving of place among the top 25 teams in the nation. Where they deserve to be ranked can be debated. But leaving them off the ballot is another way of saying this team does not exists.

Yet when USC beat then No. 4 Oregon on November 19, the coaches dropped Oregon to No. 9 the following week. Strange how Oregon can drop in their poll to a team that does not officially exist to them?

Luckily the AP Poll does not count towards the BCS Rankings. Although one does have to fool themselves to think that the Harris Interactive Poll is not influenced by the AP Poll in some way.

Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott has to be happy that three of his teams occupy spots within the final regular season AP Top 10. Scott and Duck’s head coach Chip Kelly have to be angry that voters have made a joke out of the Pac-12 inaugural championship game by jumping USC ahead of Oregon.  

Through it all fans have to realize that the so-called college football “experts” do not know as much about college football as we have traditionally given them credit for. 

What would you like to clarify?

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Larry Scott: A PAC-10 and PAC-12 College Football Review and Preview for the 2011 Season

This is part one in a series previewing the PAC-12 2011 season.

The rollercoaster ride continues for PAC-10, now PAC-12 commissioner Larry Scott in 2011. When Scott took the reigns as commissioner in July of 2009, all was great in PAC-10 football land. USC was coming off a dominate 2008 football season that saw the school finish with a 12-1 record (the one loss to Oregon State in Corvallis 27-21), an early season thrashing of BCS heavyweight Ohio State (35-3), a Rose Bowl win over Penn State (38-24), and their seventh straight PAC-10 conference title.

The rest of the PAC-10 was pretty good as well. Half of the schools in conference made a bowl with great results during the 2008 bowl season going 5-0; Rose Bowl: USC vs. Penn State 38-24, Holiday Bowl Oregon 42 vs. Oklahoma State 31, Sun Bowl: Oregon State vs. Pittsburgh 3-0, Emerald Bowl: California vs. Miami 24-17, Las Vegas Bowl: Arizona vs. BYU 31-21. All was seemingly great for PAC-10 football. Expansion was bantered about as soon as Scott took over but no serious discussions took place. Why would one want to expand the successful conference and what teams would help bolster the conferences status across the academic and sports board? The upcoming highlights and low lights no one could have predicted.

The rollercoaster ride began in week one of the 2009 football season for Larry Scott. #14 Oregon lost to #16 Boise State 19-8. After the game Oregon running back LaGarrette Blount (now with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers) punched Boise State defensive end Byron Hout and was subsequently suspended until November 9, when he was reinstated by the school with Scott’s permission. Nine days after the Oregon loss, UCLA pulls off a major upset at the University of Tennessee beating the Vols 19-15. On the same day #3 USC beats Ohio State 18-15 in Columbus on a last minute touchdown by running back Stafon Johnson. On September 28, Johnson would end his season in a tragic weight room accident when a barbell crushed his vocal cords, adam’s apple, and tore his neck muscles.

Parity in a tough conference ensued as each team took turns pulling upsets throughout the season. When the smoke cleared, Oregon would claim the conference championship and end the season ranked #11, Toby Gerhart finished second in the Heisman Trophy race to Alabama running back Mark Ingram, Jr. in the closest Heisman voting ever, and #22 USC at 9-4 is the only other PAC-10 team to finish the season ranked. Seven PAC-10 teams made a bowl due to the winning capabilities each team showed during intra-conference games. The downside is only two of the seven teams won their less acclaimed bowl games; Emerald Bowl: USC vs. Boston College 24-13, Eagle Bank Bowl: UCLA vs. Temple 30-21.

2010 kept the ride going for Scott. In January, then USC head coach Pete Carroll resigned from his position and took over as the head coach for the Seattle Seahawks. Tennessee head coach Lane Kiffin, a former offensive coordinator at USC, resigned to take over as head coach for USC after one year as the Vols head coach amongst a national college football controversy. In February Oregon running back LaMichael James (a 2010 Heisman finalist and 2010 Doak Walker Award winner) was arrested on charges of fourth-degree assault, physical harassment, and strangulation; he pleaded not guilty. In June Oregon quarterback Jeremiah Masoli was kicked off the team after being arrested for marijuana possession during a traffic stop. Masoli was on suspension during his drug arrest for the entire 2010 season after pleading guilty to second-degree burglary charges in March; he pleaded guilty to stealing two laptops and a projector from a campus fraternity house.

June 10, the announcement day of a monumental change for Larry Scott and the PAC-10, the NCAA handed down their sanctions regarding former USC running back Reggie Bush; sanctions included a loss of scholarships and a two year bowl ban. On the same day Scott wisely followed through with his announcement that Colorado will join the PAC-10 as their 11^th conference member. The University of Utah’s announcement as the PAC-12 twelfth member would follow seven days later.

The importance of the PAC-10 adding two conference members seemed to be overshadowed by the turmoil surrounding the programs currently involved. Utah a program of prominence over the past five years, including an undefeated season in 2008, was welcomed by the national media as a “great get for the PAC-10”. The University of Colorado on the other hand had been a low functioning Big 12 team over the previous five years with only one bowl appearance; Independence Bowl in 2007. The addition of the two teams would finally add legitimacy to the BCS power conference by having an end of the season conference championship game. The addition of a championship game means more revenue for the conference and teams involved. Scott was able to parlay the television rights to the first PAC-12 Championship Game to Fox for $14.5 million; the game is to air on December 3, 2011.

With the promise of an exciting future, little of that excitement translated into positive commentary for the PAC-10 when the 2010 Associated Press college football preseason rankings came out. Only three PAC-10 teams were listed; Oregon #11, USC #14, Oregon State #24. USC and Oregon State would only spend a few weeks ranked while Arizona would spend the majority of the season in the top 25 before falling out of the top 25 two weeks before seasons end on the tails of a five game losing streak. Despite finishing the season with a 6-6 record, Arizona State would not be eligible for post season play because two of their victories were over Football Championship Series teams, formerly known as Division 1-AA.

The biggest surprise of the 2010 season was Stanford; yes bigger than Oregon’s run. After the departure of Toby Gerhart to the Minnesota Vikings, many pundits did not give the Cardinal much of a chance. The rise of Andrew Luck to All-American quarterback status would change the fortunes for the 2010 Cardinal team and head coach Jim Harbaugh; Harbaugh left Stanford to become the head coach of the San Francisco 49ers on January 7, 2011 after 4 years in Palo Alto. Stanford cruised through the season with only one loss to eventual BCS National Championship runner-up, University of Oregon, at Autzen Stadium in Eugene. Harbaugh coached the Cardinal to a 12-1 record and a convincing win over ACC champion #12 Virginia Tech in the Orange Bowl winning 40-12.

Overshadowing the spot light of the Cardinal run was University of Oregon. Ducks’ second year head coach Chip Kelly would bring more excitement and hope to the Oregon faithful. During the 2010 season the Ducks would be ranked #1 in the Associated Press college football rankings for the first time in school history, finish the season with a school record 12 wins, finish the regular season undefeated with no ties for the first time in school history, and see their head coach win the Associated Press College Football Coach of the Year Award.

The Ducks high powered offense averaged 49.3 points per game easily outpacing all of their opponents, except for the Cal Bears (15-13). A heartbreaking loss to Auburn in the BCS National Championship Game (22-19) only fuels the fire and expectations for the 2011 Oregon Ducks team.

What will become of the newly formed PAC-12 in 2011?

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