Oregon-Arizona St.

Last week, Oregon defeated USC. This was a huge victory, both for its result and for the psychological impact of defeating the conference Goliath. This week's game however is equally large. Today Oregon faces #4 Arizona St. I don't know anyone who thinks ASU is the 4th best team in the country nor have I seen anyone pick ASU in this game. I'm not particularly concerned either. Except that I'm concerned over my lack of concern.

Dennis Erickson is one of the greatest coaches in college football history. He doesn't get seen this way because he's also nakedly ambitious. Unlike the commonly cited coaches of the last 40 years (Osborne, Paterno, Bowden, etc.), Erickson has not stuck with one school. Rather, he has moved around, always willing to cash a better paycheck. The only team he has stayed long enough to build into a national champion is Miami and then he began one of his 2 misguided NFL stints. But everywhere he has gone shows marked improvement immediately. Idaho, Washington St., Miami, Oregon St., and now Arizona St. He's the consummate winner. At the same time, I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see Nebraska give him huge money this winter to take over their moribund program. I would if I were Nebraska. They need the immediate improvement. Then when he leaves, they will be on top again and can get whatever coach they want.

Anyway, I'm assuming Oregon is not taking ASU lightly. I pick a 41-24 victory. ASU has a good run defense and they can throw downfield, but they are very inconsistent within games and have been on the verge of losing several times. Today, playing before the crazies in Eugene and facing Dennis Dixon and Jonathan Stewart, it will come back and haunt them.

Of course, we almost could not watch this game. It was not picked up by ABC or FSN before the season and therefore was destined only for regional broadcast in Oregon and Arizona before ESPN came to the rescue. Sports Illustrated's Stewart Mandel details what happened very well. Mandel rightly rips Pac-10 Commissioner Tom Hansen. Hansen is a terrible commissioner. He has long doomed the Pac-10 to FSN broadcasts and third rate bowls because he doesn't want to travel. He forces networks to pick Pac-10 games before the season starts, which allows for situations like Oregon-ASU, neither of which were picked particularly high in the conference before the season, to develop. Right now, the #2 team in the Pac-10 goes to the Holiday Bowl and the #3 goes to the Sun Bowl. This is ridiculous. The Pac-10 needs to be facing the best of the SEC, Big 12, and Big 10 each year in the bowl season.

There is East Coast Bias in the media. But the lack of respect the conference gets also is very much of its own making and these problems lay at the doorstep of Tom Hansen. There is a Fire Tom Hansen website here. It's not much of a site, but it's a start.

In related news, what in the world do conferences think by starting their own TV networks? These have been completely disastrous. It's dumb enough to have a Big 10 Network. Did you want to see Wisconsin-Ohio St. today? Too bad, you can't. The assumption is that enough people want to see these games to force cable companies to include the channels, but so far that has not been the case. But the Mtn., for the Mountain West Conference, is even dumber. You can't see any Mountain West game unless you have this obscure channel. Guess what? The Mountain West has completely fallen off the face of the college football map. No one has seen their games in 2 years. This is killing the conference. I know Utah, BYU, and Air Force are trying to change things. But in the national spotlight, there is no question that the WAC has passed them because Boise St., Nevada, Fresno St., and Hawaii are on TV every week. The WAC is smart--they will play an ESPN game any day, any time. The Pac 10 and Mountain West? Not so smart.