It's 2010 And The Same Three Teams Lead The Pac 10: Why

The Trojans, Ducks and Bears owning the Pac 10. Get used to it, it's not changing anytime soon.

There will be occasional runs by other teams. UCLA won 10 last year and wound up in the Sun Bowl. Washington State had a great run, a half decade ago under Mike Price, and I'm sure we haven't heard the last of the Huskies in Seattle. But for the most part, until something radical changes it's the Trojans, Bears and Ducks hammering it out for the top spot in the conference.

USC for one has enough talent to play poorly and still beat solid to above-average teams. They've been doing it for weeks now. They've got a coach in place who looks like he's going nowhere for a long time, support by everyone in all of LA, and recruits clamoring from all over the nation to play there. Gee, when USC tails off, they'll have to cut their recruiting back to mostly good players from Southern California. That might actually hurt the Bears and Ducks the most because they'll be fighting over more of the same players at that point. Now, Oregon and Cal are in the driver's seat for a lot of players who aren't at the top of USC's list. The Trojans also have the media machine that's the entire LA media market pumping out their propaganda. The same kind of propaganda all the others teams enjoy, just not on a scale with, say, 8 million people watching and listening. USC's going to win 10 games a year or so for a long time.

Cal's got Tedford and 'In Tedford We Trust' as the t-shirts say. They say they've committed a ton of money to fixing up the pit that is memorial Stadium. (I'm being polite about that by the way. It's worse than a pit.) while they say it's going to break ground next summer, Musburger was dead wrong in saying it's set to happen. It's not. They don't have the clearance or money right now according to a lot of sources. Could be a at least a couple years before that happens. But if they keep filling it up with 70,000 plus like they did against the Ducks, the money will show up in no time. They've got the entire Bay Area to recruit to and suddenly guys like Marshawn Lynch who were loving Oregon, start thinking they can have the same kind of football experience since 80% of the staff at Cal, was at Oregon at one time. They've also got a world-class university and can get some players just on the academic reputation as well.

Oregon's got the stability of Bellotti, who's been there over a decade now. A stable staff, a great place to go to school, huge support from a lot of boosters (Not just Knight), the nation's loudest stadium, solid academics, and an escape for a lot of young guys from California, Illinois, Las Vegas or somewhere else they don't want to be anymore. It's far enough away that they're getting away, but not across the country. The Warsaw School of Sports Marketing is something a lot of athletes are drawn to. The best program of it's kind in the nation is very attractive to athletes, as you might expect.

Unlike the Bay Area and LA, Eugene's not a big city so it's the only show in town and much more of a traditional college experience. Players can almost guarantee the same staff will be there when they're seniors that was there when they were freshmen. A rarity in college football. They've got the spread offense and an athletic department committed to marketing the program and winning. Oregon's able to recruit a different type of player. Oregon's also still talking about expanding Autzen Stadium beyond 60.000 people, and recently took over space inside the Mashofsky Center from the wrestling department to provide even more workout space.
UCLA: Will always push for the top , but if you want to play in LA, USC is the place, not UCLA. Even with Marcedes Lewis, Maurice Drew, and Drew Olson, they were embarrassed twice by the Trojans. UCLA might suffer as well in recruiting if USC stops recruiting nationally and has to focus only on local talent again.

Washington: One of the sleeping giants. Ty can flat out recruit as
WSU: Location alone keeps them from competing with Washington for the most good players in the state. Not a lot of city kids want to escape that far away from the rest of civilization. Pullman's beautiful, but it's not for everyone.

Arizona State: The sleeping giant everyone worries might someday get a real coach and a true direction. Not for awhile though, Dirk Koetter just got an extension so now he's got 4 years left at ASU, courtesy of AD Lisa Love. Oops.

Oregon State: How long does Riley have? Another year or so I'd say. The win up in Seattle might've calmed down some of the boosters but Oregon State has lost at least 5 games almost every year since 1968 when Dee Andros was coaching. Nearly 40 years of a 'tradition of mediocrity', it won't change anytime soon. They get good players, and some outstanding players like Joe Newton, but not enough to compete every year with the best in the conference week in and week out. Also, their facilities are horrible and their stadium is like, a big high school field. Potato salad magnate Al Reser has set out to change all that with the most recent expansion, but it still isn't what Oregon and some other rivals have. And won't be even when it's finished.

Stanford: Can you really find 85 great football players that are that smart? Ty Willingham did, but maybe he knew doing it every year was tougher than it looked at the time. So he bailed for Notre Dame. Buddy Tevens was an awful hire, Walt Harris has looked even worse at times. The Cardinal will be down or in the middle at best for a long time to come. With a huge, brand new empty stadium though.

Arizona: Can we officially call this a train wreck yet? It's getting there. Under Mike Stoops the Cats have recruited well, and then looked like a bad team almost every week anyway. Narrow home wins over soft teams, blown out by good teams, and destroyed by great ones every time until they were at least in it against USC a couple weeks ago. Stoops arrogantly came into the conference thinking he'd just clean up. Then later said the conference is a lot better than he thought it was. What else is he going to say? He's getting clobbered every single week. Now they're his guys too, he can't blame Mackovic.

He's got this year and next year he's on the fire seat. Not the hot seat, the fire seat. If and when Lute Olson leave the Cats basketball team will suffer. Howland's already taking the best Southern California kids he used to get. Meaning? U of A's hoops team isn't as good the heat's turned up on football to be a revenue generator. If Stoops hasn't made a bowl appearance by next year, I think he's long gone back to work for his brother in Oklahoma again.