Pac 12 Preview – Here’s a stat for you….either USC, Oregon or Stanford has won at least a share of the conference title for 15 straight seasons. I’m betting that streak continues. The more important question is can the Pac 12 get a team back in the Playoff, or will they again be a conference deep in good teams, but no elite ones?

(You can discuss this on the BSL Board here.)

NORTH

Stanford – Had the Cardinal avoided either a season-opening dud at Northwestern, or a gaffe-induced loss to Oregon, there’s a good chance they’d be entering this season off a Playoff appearance. As it is, they continue to disprove the belief that high-level success for the elite academic institutions is unsustainable in this day and age of college football. Led by Heisman runner-up and all-purpose yardage king Christian McCaffrey, Stanford will look to continue that run. But if they are to do so they have a lot of pieces around him to replace, including 3-plus year starting QB Kevin Hogan, three-fifths of their starting OL, and two of their top receivers. While the Cardinal of the 2010s have had notable playmakers, they have won games in the trenches. At least on the D-line they should be solid. But against a rough first-half schedule (Kansas State, USC, @UCLA, @Washington, Washington State, @Notre Dame) they will need the new OLs to have a fast learning curve to open things up for McCaffrey and keep the new QB’s (for now, that’s senior Ryan Burns) jersey clean.

Washington – Perhaps no team in the country has been hyped as a dark horse conference contender more than Chris Peterson’s Huskies, which begs the question as to whether they can even be called a dark horse. There’s a reason UW is a sexy pick despite back-to-back 7-6 seasons. They return plenty of young talent on both sides of the ball. Offensively QB Jake Browning and RB Myles Gaskin, both just freshmen last season, lead the way with a season under their belts. The return from injury of top WR John Ross should further boost the offense. Defensively, the Huskies have little to prove, as they were the conference’s best unit last year and return perhaps the conference’s best defensive player in S Budda Baker. The non-conference schedule is pretty soft, so if they actually can take care of business in conference (not the least of which is ending a streak of 12 losses to Oregon) then perhaps a surprise Playoff bid does lie in their future.

Oregon – It tells you something about how quickly expectations can change when the coach of a program with a mostly moribund history can go 33-8 in 3 seasons, only two years removed from playing for the title, and be on the hot seat. But that’s just where Mark Helfrich finds himself entering 2016. It doesn’t help that Chip Kelly still casts a shadow in Eugene, Helfrich gets little credit for the Ducks’ accomplishments the two seasons he “inherited” Marcus Mariota, and for the second straight year will rely on a FCS graduate transfer to QB the high-octane offense. That mostly worked out well last year with Vernon Adams, I say mostly because Adams missed time in several games with injuries, and the offense sputtered badly in his absence. This year they will hope for better luck (whether in terms of health or better backups) with Montana St transfer Dakota Prukop. Having offensive weapons like RB Royce Freeman and plenty of gifted WRs should help, but they had that last year and it didn’t matter when Adams was out. The defense last season was downright terrible, especially when the offense stalled and they were needed the most. DC Don Pellum was demoted for it, and Brady Hoke brought in to fix it. Hoke probably doesn’t inherit the personnel for a quick turnaround though. The Ducks should still be a 9-10 win team this season, but for some here in my neck of the woods that’s just not good enough anymore.

Washington State – It looks like Mike Leach may have completed his turnaround at Wazzou. It took several seasons, but that program was about as down-and-out as could be when he arrived in 2012. Luke Falk, a dark-horse Heisman candidate, returns to run Leach’s precision Air Raid offense, and he’ll have 104-catch WR Gabe Marks back to throw to. No need to waste space here talking about the Cougars’ running game, as Leach mostly refuses to do it. For a team whose calling card is its offense, the defense should be good enough to for a 7-8 win season and a return to a bowl for a second consecutive season, a rarity in Pullman.

California – Speaking of teams that will rely on a graduate transfer at QB, Cal’s loss of #1 overall NFL pick Jared Goff should be much less bumpy with Davis Webb coming from Texas Tech. Webb is obviously used to an offense that airs the ball out, so it should be a relatively easy transition system-wise. The bigger transition will be among the playmakers that Webb will target. Cal lost just about the entirety of their receiver corps that had any significant experience. Defensively, Cal was terrible last season, and must replace 5 of their top 6 tacklers. Perhaps the bright side is that the new guys can’t do much worse. Their non-conference schedule looks challenging, but they did survive the long trip to Australia to beat Hawaii, but now must face Texas and San Diego St, plus the two LA schools in inter-division play. Webb and the new faces on offense are going to have to mesh quickly for the Bears to return to a bowl game.

Oregon State – Oregon Ducks fans need only ask their in-state rivals about the perils of too-high expectations. Mike Riley, during two stints as the Beavers head coach, turned one of college football’s sorriest programs into one that was mostly respectable, and occasionally pretty good, despite a lack of resources that could rival any Power Five school. And yet while Riley left Corvallis for Nebraska on his own, it’s telling that there was almost a sigh of relief among Beavers fans that a new era was upon them. What little Riley left behind on the way out was mostly ripped to the foundation by incoming coach Gary Anderson. Anderson made no bones about the fact that he was rebuilding from scratch, and the results last season showed (2-10, 0-9 in conference). One bright spot is that Anderson’s former QB at Utah State, transfer Darell Garretson, will take over an offense he has familiarity and past success with, while last year’s starting QB, Seth Collins, moves to WR. Otherwise, there’s not much talent to speak of, and with a slightly tougher non-conference schedule than 2015 (@Minnesota and @Boise St) Beavers fans may have to look somewhere other than wins-and-losses for improvement.

 

SOUTH

USC – USC might well have the most talent-laden roster in the conference. Two things could stand between them and a Playoff berth though: inexperience at QB and a brutal schedule. Then there’s new coach Clay Helton. For a program that could seemingly have just about anyone they choose, Helton, who took over as interim mid-season when Steve Sarkisian left to deal with alcohol abuse and was subsequently fired, is a curious choice. But so was Pete Carroll back in 2000, and that worked well. Things could work out at QB too, where 5-star recruit Max Browne takes over for Kody Kessler. Making Browne’s life much easier is an offense that returns every other starter, including one of the nation’s best offensive lines, one of the nation’s best WRs in JuJu Smith, and a solid RB tandem of Justin Davis and Ronald Jones. Defense is a bigger question mark, as 6 of the Trojan’s starting front 7 must be replaced. And then there’s the schedule….yikes! It begins with defending-champ Alabama in Arlington,TX, ends with Notre Dame, and in between features @Stanford, @Utah, Oregon, @Washington, @UCLA. If the Trojans are in the Playoff come January, they will no doubt have earned their way there.

UCLA – With apologies to Luke Falk, the Bruins have the best QB in the conference in Josh Rosen. I predicted big things for the Bruins last season, a Playoff berth to be specific. I thought that if Rosen could learn on the job quickly, the other pieces were in place for Jim Mora’s team. But then came some tough injury losses on defense, and the up-and-down play you’d expect from a true freshman QB, and it just wasn’t meant to be. But now Rosen has a full season of experience, and two of the key injured defensive players, DT Eddie Vanderdoes and CB Kyle Moreau, return. But offensively much of Rosen’s supporting cast is gone. Also, don’t underestimate the loss of OC Noel Mazzone to Texas A&M. And speaking of Texas A&M, the Bruins will head to College Station to open their season against their former OC. They also have what figures to be a challenging road trip to BYU. Overall, their schedule is still much more manageable than their crosstown rival’s, but I still like USC’s talent to prevail in the division.

Utah – The Utes should again feature one of the nastiest, most physical defenses in the conference. They have one of the best defensive lines in the country anchored by a name that should sound familiar, Lowell Lotulelei, and also features returnees Kylie Fitts and Hunter Dimick. The linebacking unit will have to replace its top tacklers. The secondary gave up a lot of yards last season, but a closer look shows that they were actually 3rd in the conference in defensive passer rating, likely because their run defense was so good teams had no choice but to throw against them. Offensively the Utes must replace nearly all of last season’s skill players, including QB Travis Wilson and all-everything RB Devontae Booker. But Kyle Whittingham wins with his defense, and a good defense starts up front. While they still won’t be among the conference’s elite, the question of whether Utah could consistently compete at the Power Five level has been answered.

Arizona – After winning the South Division title in 2014 the Wildcats dropped to just 3-6 in conference last season. The reason wasn’t hard to figure out….their defense stunk. Stunk as in over 40 points per game allowed in conference play. They were without star LB Scooby Wright to injury most of the season, and there really wasn’t much else there to make up for it. Marcel Yates comes from Boise State to take over the defense for Rich Rodriguez, but they are still likely to be among the conference’s bottom-tier groups. Offensively, the Wildcats can score, like you would expect from a Rich-Rod coached team. They do have some health questions with RB Nick Wilson and QB Anu Solomon, and with Solomon’s injuries last season comes a QB competition with Brandon Dawkins. There are 5 potential wins on their schedule. The most likely place for the 6th and a bowl is in the season opener against BYU in Glendale.

Colorado – Maybe I’m being bold in picking Colorado to finish ahead of ASU here. I’m actually thinking they finish with identical conference records, but that the Buffalos get the head-to-head win in Boulder for the tie-breaker. So there you have it. It has to be rough to try and make progress in such a competitive division like the Pac 12 South. While incremental improvement can be seen on the field for 4th-year coach Mike MacIntyre, there has been little to show for it in the win column. Adding salt in the wound is that Davis Webb looked set to transfer to Boulder from Texas Tech, then he pulled a last-minute switcharoo and went to conference rival Cal. Ouch. That means the Buffalos will go with Sefo Liufau, coming off a foot injury. They will field a more experienced team this season, and more incremental improvement seems likely….enough that I would be inclined to give MacIntyre one more shot in 2017. The other bright spot is they play Oregon State again this season, so there’s a shot at two wins in-conference (something they haven’t done since 2011, their first season in the Pac). The bad news? They also play @Stanford, @Oregon and Washington State in the North Division. Then there is what figures to be a very rough visit to Ann Arbor, MI in Week 3. Like I said, progress in small increments is what you want to see.

Arizona State – As bad as Arizona’s defense was last season, the Sun Devils’ was, well, at least entertaining to watch. Todd Graham’s aggressive, all-or-nothing approach to defense led to some interesting stats. They were #3 in the country in tackles-for-loss and tied for #1 in sacks. But when they weren’t making big plays, they were busy giving them up. They were dead last in the country in passing yards allowed per game (338) and 109th in yards allowed per play. Expect more of the same this season. The big question marks are almost all on offense. They must replace their QB, 4/5 of their offensive line, and 3 of their top 4 receivers. They do have a very solid RB tandem in Kalen Ballage and Demario Richard. But can the OL open enough holes for them? Barring a couple of upsets, there does not appear to be 6 wins on the schedule.

Also in this Series:

College Football 2016 – The State of The Game

ACC Preview

Big 12 Preview

Big Ten Preview

Up Next: SEC

Mike Lowe
Mike Lowe

College Football Analyst

Mike is a Baltimore native living in Portland, OR since 2007. He currently runs his own business specializing in video production and online marketing. Prior to that he was a legal technology consultant, worked for 9 years at Johns Hopkins University and served 6 years in the Air Force. He also enjoys travel, food, beer, and is a volunteer at the Oregon Humane Society.

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