{"id":1313566,"date":"2019-08-14T21:48:00","date_gmt":"2019-08-15T03:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/pac-12-has-no-clear-favorite-but-plenty-of-potential\/"},"modified":"2019-08-14T21:48:00","modified_gmt":"2019-08-15T03:48:00","slug":"pac-12-has-no-clear-favorite-but-plenty-of-potential","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/pac-12-has-no-clear-favorite-but-plenty-of-potential\/","title":{"rendered":"Pac-12 has no clear favorite, but plenty of potential"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
The Utah Utes were selected to win the Pac-12 in the preseason media poll and they’re also ranked in the preseason coaches’ poll. (AP Photo\/Rick Bowmer, File)<\/strong>
Rick Bowmer | Associated Press file photo | AP<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

LOS ANGELES \u2014 The Pac-12\u2019s national championship drought hits 15 years this winter, and there are few signs of a respite. Several of the conference\u2019s traditional powers are in states of rebuilding or disarray heading into a season that\u2019s murkier than a Mike Leach metaphor.<\/p>\n

Even the preseason media poll couldn\u2019t identify a clear favorite, with plucky Utah barely emerging on top after several schools essentially split the vote.<\/p>\n

But to the coaches entrusted with returning the West Coast\u2019s major conference to national competitiveness, this seeming parity actually underlines the overall strength of a league on the rise again. Elite talent is easy to find around the Pac-12, and several programs are in a position to potentially put it all together.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are not a lot of conferences out there that can legitimately look up and say more than half their conference has a chance to win the conference,\u201d Stanford coach David Shaw said. \u201cThe people that know football know how deep and how difficult this conference is. The people that only want to look in two spots, in the SEC and the Big Ten footprint, you can\u2019t win them over anyway, because they\u2019re not paying attention to the scope of college football.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, the Pac-12 doesn\u2019t have a traditional power in peak form after graduation losses at defending champion Washington and Stanford, Southern California\u2019s miserable 2018 season and the questions still looming around resurgent Oregon and its 5-4 conference mark.<\/p>\n

Into the gap stepped Utah, the (relative) conference newcomer with numerous returning starters, an elite defense and promising quarterback Tyler Huntley.<\/p>\n

Whether the Utes live up to their hype or another power emerges, Huskies coach Chris Petersen is confident this league is on its way up again.<\/p>\n

\u201cFive or six years ago, the Pac-12 could do no wrong,\u201d Petersen said. \u201cWe were in the greatest position ever, and we were going to do this and that. And five years later, (people think) we don\u2019t even know how to play football anymore. It\u2019s always somewhere in between. I know we\u2019ve got good players out here, and good coaches and programs. I think it\u2019s all cyclical.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here are more things to watch during the Pac-12 football season:<\/p>\n

UTES UP FRONT<\/p>\n

Utah is the preseason favorite, but it\u2019s not going to anybody\u2019s head in Salt Lake City, according to coach Kyle Whittingham. In fact, he wants his Utes thinking not about national championships, but only about achieving Pac-12 supremacy, largely because the league\u2019s South Division teams are 1-7 in the league championship game. \u201cWe felt like we were going to have some preseason hype, and so we wanted to make sure that we got out ahead of it and talked to our players about just ignoring the noise and staying focused,\u201d Whittingham said. \u201cWe all know that the Pac-12 championship is our goal, as I\u2019m sure it is for every team in the Pac-12, so the focus is not on the goal. It\u2019s (on) how we are going to achieve that goal.\u201d<\/p>\n

TROJAN HOT SEAT<\/p>\n

Coach Clay Helton clearly needs a swift rebound with his Trojans coming off their first losing season since 2000, including five losses in their last six. USC finished 91st in scoring in the FBS despite a talent-studded offensive roster, and Helton addressed the problem by hiring blue chip coordinators Kliff Kingsbury and then Graham Harrell, who brings his version of the Air Raid offense to Tailback U. The Trojans\u2019 brutal early season schedule is an obstacle to a quick turnaround, but Helton knows what\u2019s expected \u2014 or else.<\/p>\n

HERBERT\u2019S RETURN<\/p>\n

Quarterback Justin Herbert returned to Oregon for his senior season, and he\u2019ll finally have the same coach in consecutive years. Mario Cristobal\u2019s Ducks should contend for their first league title since 2014 if Herbert takes another step from his 3,000-yard season last fall. Herbert calls it \u201ca huge bonus\u201d to have the same coaching staff for the first time: \u201cWe go from having spent all this time learning to teaching. We\u2019re able to reach out to those younger guys, get them dialed up and up to speed so they are able to jump in as soon as we can.\u201d<\/p>\n

HUSKIES RECHARGE<\/p>\n

Although Washington is heading into its biggest rebuilding season in a half-decade after losing 13 starters from last year\u2019s champions, quarterback Jacob Eason has hopes running high in Seattle. The touted local product returned from Georgia last season in hopes of replacing four-year starter Jake Browning this fall. Petersen insists Eason is competing with sophomore Jake Haener in camp, but most expect Eason and running back Salvon Ahmed to step in for Huskies stalwarts Browning and Myles Gaskin.<\/p>\n

THE CHIP DIP<\/p>\n

UCLA is coming off its worst season since 1977 after going 3-9 in coach Chip Kelly\u2019s debut. Those Bruins largely got a pass due to the program\u2019s steady decline in Jim Mora\u2019s final seasons, and they also beat USC. But the deep-pocketed UCLA boosters who attracted Kelly will be looking for some return on their investment this fall, and they might get it if Kelly fields an improved offense around quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson.<\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Utah Utes were selected to win the Pac-12 in the preseason media poll and they’re also ranked in the preseason coaches’ poll. (AP Photo\/Rick Bowmer, File)Rick Bowmer | Associated Press file photo | AP LOS ANGELES \u2014 The Pac-12\u2019s national championship drought hits 15 years this winter, and there are few signs of a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1313566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-07 06:50:11","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1313566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1313566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1313566\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1313566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1313566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1313566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}