COVID-19
Needless to say the SEC and Big 10 talking heads won’t have to spend the whole season explaining why the PAC-12 shouldn’t be in the conversation regarding a national championship. By playing 9 fewer games the conference has sealed its fate regarding that. Will be interesting to see if they feel the same way about Ohio State and the Big 10 since they also, along with the ACC, eliminated their out-of-conference schedule and just got started on October 22nd in Week 8. But the PAC-12 waited for a solution, played it smart, and look to have come up with a way to have a season in which the student athletes and coaching staff can participate safely. Based upon what’s been happening so far it looks like they made the right decision as far as student and staff health goes.
As far as the teams that decided to go forward no matter what, well according to Sport’s Illustrated, “Alabama’s head coach Nick Saban has tested positive for COVID-19, meanwhile, elsewhere in the SEC, the game between Florida and LSU has been postponed due to a spike in cases with the Gators.” In addition to that game, six other games were postponed on Week 7 including the games between No. 7 Oklahoma State at Baylor and No. 8 Cincinnati at Tulsa.
According to the IndyStar, a part of the USA Today Network in an article published on October 15th, 19 teams so far have produced positive COVID-19 test results including Baylor, BYU, Notre Dame, Florida, LSU, TCU and others. In addition, 23 games have been rescheduled. To be continued . . .
Per the PAC-12 annoucement: “Teams must have at least 53 scholarship players-including one quarterback, four defensive linemen and seven offensive linemen-available or a game could be declared a no contest or get postponed. If the number of healthy scholarship players drops below the 53-man threshold, the impacted team still has the option to play the game. If the impacted team opts not to play, PAC-12 Commissioner Larry Scott will either reschedule the game or declare it a no contest.
Games should be rescheduled or declared a no contest in the event of the following coronavirus-related impacts: (1) Inability to isolate new positive cases within a team or athletic department or to quantine high risk contacts; or (2) Unavailability or inability to perform testing as provided by the PAC-12 medical guidelines.
Campus-wide or local community transmission rates that are considered unsafe by local health officials are: (1) Inability to perform adequate contact tracing consistent with governmental requirements; and (2) Local public health officials of the home team state that there is an inability for the hospital infrastructure to accommodate a surge.”
Coaching
To say that there has been turnover in the head coaching ranks of the PAC-12 is understatement for sure. Ten of the twelve positions have turned over in the last five years. This year there are three as Washington, Colorado, and Washington State have all named new head coaches. The Cougars not only have a new head coach, they also emptied out the rest and bring in 10 new assistant coaches. Also getting rid of at least half of their assistants are Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, and USC with a few changes also made at Oregon, Cal, and Washington. As far as ranking the coaches go, in the PAC-12 you get to the top if you can just hang in there long enough which is why the top two spots are held by Kyle Whittingham and David Shaw.
Whittingham has yet to win the conference title but in the last six years he has won nine or more games five times, the PAC-12 South three times, and has finished ranked in the Top 25 four times. Last year the Utes went 11-3 and appeared in the PAC-12 Championship Game for the second straight year—the one game he has yet to win. This could be his year as Utah is only one of two schools that come back with their entire coaching staff intact.
David Shaw comes off a bad season in which Stanford came in next to last in the North and won just 4 games overall. Prior to that he coached no year in which the Cardinal failed to make it into a post season bowl winning 75% of his games with three conference titles and a bowl record of 5-3. CBS Sports speculates that; “The 2019 season was either an anomaly with couse correction coming in 2020 or a warning sign that the years of predictable consistency are over on The Farm.”
Remember how Colorado thought all its problems were going to go away by cleaning house and bringing in SEC’s Mel Tucker, former Defensive Coordinator for Georgia, as head coach? Well, Mel and Georgia fellow coaches Jay Johnson as Offensive Coordinator and Tyson Summers as Defensive Coordinator probably thought they’d come in and take the PAC-12 by storm and show us how SEC football coaching can not only elevate the lowly Buffaloes but the entire conference. They went a dismal 5-7 and in February Mel packed up and left for the Michigan State head coaching job. Turns out that was a good move for Mel, as they just knocked off rival Michigan this past weekend. One more headache for Jim Harbaugh.
The new head coach at Colorado is-wait for it-Karl Dorrell. Yes, the same Karl Dorrell who was 35-27 as head coach at UCLA for five seasons and quit his job as Assistant Head Coach of the Miami Dolphins to take the position. Not new to Colorado, Dorrell worked as an assistant coach there on two separate occasions in the 1990’s under both Bill McCartney and Rick Neuheisel. As far as predictions for this year’s Buffaloes, the PAC-12 Media Poll sees Dorrell matching Tucker’s record of last year-next to last in the South.
The one SEC coach who has settled into the PAC-12 and done well is former Alabama assistant Mario Cristobal. Physicality is the prevailing theme now for the Ducks, not surprising with Cristobal being the former Offensive Line Coach for Nick Saban. Throw in non-stop successful recruiting and you have Oregon and the Ducks second only to a surging USC in the recruiting wars in the PAC-12 and just outside the Top 10 nationally at Number 11, picking up three 5 Star players, as many as No. 4 ranked LSU.
As far as only the 2nd team in the PAC-12 to return their entire coaching staff-it’s Oregon State. Head coach Jonathan Smith says; “There’s some benefit from continuity . . . a great foundation of trust [between] the coaches and the players.” As linebacker Avery Roberts put it; “Everyone is speaking the same language, learning the same techniques and just getting better at the craft instead of learning something totally new.” By concentrating on the details instead of introducting a brand new playbook OSU is hoping to benefit from that continuity. Once the worst team by far, certainly in the North, Oregon State beat both Cal and Arizona State last year and although falling one game short of being bowl eligible they came so close-loosing three games by just three points or less.
Nick Rolovich takes over the head coaching duties at Washington State and was named to the job just a couple of weeks after the pirate Mike Leach took off for Mississippi State. Last year Rolovich coached Hawaii to a Mountain West Conference West Division Title and knocked off BYU in the Hawaii Bowl. He had an overall record of just over 500 at 28-27 in four seasons at the helm of the Rainbow Warriors but is credited with restoring pride in the program and bringing them back into conference title contention. Even though Leach left after an off year he’ll be a tough act for Rolovich to follow.
Technically Jimmy Lake is a new head coach, but just technically as he has was serving as Defensive Coordinator for Chris Peterson’s Washington defense that has not only led the PAC-12 the last few years but has been one of the top defenses in the nation. The media poll has the Huskies coming in third in the north behind Oregon and Cal. But being the homer I am don’t be surprised if they out perform expectations.
In his fourth year Justin Wilcox returns as head coach for a Cal team that has improved every year and is projected to come in second in the PAC-12 North, just behind Oregon but ahead of the Huskies. Way back in January USA Today had Cal listed in their preseason Top 25. Under the lead of Wilcox the Golden Bears have gone from a 5 game winning season his first year to 8 games and a bowl win last year. But the PAC-12 North is tough which has left him with a loosing record in conference every year-something they are planning to turn around this year.
Clay Helton aside, in the normal course of college football three strikes and you’re out and this will be Chip Kelly’s third year at the helm of UCLA with a record of 7-17. In some ways don’t you wish he would have never left Oregon, or if he did leave never coach football again so he could always remain in our minds a brilliant innovator. There have certainly been some highs, especially last year after a dismal start but they seem to have only led to lower lows. I almost hate to watch but I am hoping for the best as I still think Chip is a special kind of football genius.
Flying in the face of three strikes and you’re out is USC Head Coach Clay Helton who in spite of all my negative talk has come in either first or second in the PAC-12 South in all but one of his years. More importantly for the boosters and fans the Trojans did win a PAC-12 Championship as well as a Rose Bowl. I think two things are at play that will get Helton through this, his sixth year. First, the yearly pressure from the boosters to be a top national contender will be off since no one expects any PAC-12 team, starting in Week 10, to be in the national championship race. Second, if his QB stays healthy I think USC could be a monster this year.
If you remember when Herm Edwards was hired as head coach for Arizona State they immediately lost five commits and had zero blue-chip recruits. But the success of the 65 year old former NFL coach has forced folks to reconsider and as CBS Sports puts it; “Every year that Herm Edwards continues to succeed is more proof that all expectations of coaching hires . . . should be thrown out the window. Coaching is teaching, and the rules of football don’t change that much over time.” After going 8-5 last year and beating Florida State in the Sun Bowl don’t expect Herm to take a step backwards
Following Rich Rodriguez was never going to be easy and if you were to just look at Kevin Sumlin’s two year record at Arizona you would have to wonder can this guy coach at all. But looking back at his six years with Texas A&M where he was 51-26 and that miracle 12-1 season at Houston you might come to the conclusion that the failure has been fueled by all the coaching and staff changes and moving out of players who now have the transfer portal option. But then there’s the handling of QB Kahlil Tate, the most amazing show on turf under Rodriguez, reduced to mere mortal under Sumlin. What were we saying about college coaching, three strikes and you’re out. Well this will be Sumlin’s third and very possibly final year at Arizona unless there is drastic change from the 2-7 conference record of last year.