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Arizona’s Mike Stoops is widely considered to be on a hot seat in Tucson with a 12-24 record in his first three years there. Arizona State’s Dennis Erickson is in his first year to try and make Arizona State a championship contender again.
Stoops noted that the Wildcats have "shown we can beat a top five or ten team; we’ve played stronger against top half of our conference than against our bottom half, which shows our lack of consistency."
Nevertheless, he thinks things are about to get better for his team, which was 6-6 last year but returns 19 starters. "I’m excited for our football team. We’re healthy, we have great experience; by far and away this is the most experienced and talented team we’ve had.
"If we can keep [quarterback] Willie [Tuitama] at the start and finish during the season, our chances of winning [will] go up considerably."
Erickson was perhaps the most relaxed coach of the day, cracking joke after joke with a deadpan delivery. "The strength of our offensive football team is our offensive front," he said. "Five of the six have already graduated; it took me three years after I played to graduate and that was at Montana State, the Harvard of the mountains." The media in the room roared with laughter.
Asked about the conditions in Tempe, Erickson said "I’m just finding out about the heat and it is an advantage for us. It’s hot, so we’ve got to play golf early in the morning."
Of the Sun Devils (7-6, 17 starters returning), he said "For us to be successful, we have to run the football. We have to develop at the skill positions, especially at wide out where we’re unproven. Defensively, it’s a question mark for us; we’ve got to become good on defense." He does have Rudy Carpenter returning at quarteback, however.
Erickson was more serious about the conference race: "whoever is best on defense will win the league because of the depth and the quarterbacks coming back." And he wants to be a part of that race; his most telling comment was his last: "when you get to 60 years old, [you get] impatient ,so maybe we can get some things done this year."
Arizona State was picked for fourth in the writer’s poll while Arizona was projected in seventh.
More to come on Pac-10 Football Media Day . . . tomorrow!
New Stanford coach Jim Harbaugh impressed everyone with his enthusiasm and quick wit while Cal coach Jeff Tedford sounded like a coach tired of missing opportunities to finally get Cal back to the Rose Bowl.
The youthful-looking Harbaugh, 42, broke up the media attending his session by saying "I’m tremendously excited and enthusiastic to get season started. Now I have to make good on all those promises I made in the interview process!
"We are going to do it with a committed group of seniors who are tired of getting their butts kicked." Stanford was 1-11 last season, but returns 17 starters, of whom 13 are seniors.
Harbaugh demurred on any follow-up on his comment that this coming season would be Pete Carroll’s last at USC as he would be going to the NFL, saying "that ground’s been plowed." But he couldn’t stop there and said "USC is not only best team in country, they may be best team in history of college football!"
He and quarterback T.C. Ostrander both talked about changing the culture of losing at Stanford in football. Ostrander emphasized that "confidence is really the thing. It’s not always being the better athlete or having the fastest guys, but you have to have all guys on same page at same time." Harbaugh concurred and said "I’m banking on those seniors. We will play UCLA on September 1 and we will expect to win." Stanford was picked for last in the conference again by the media panel.
Cal coach Tedford said "We have lots of experience back and we have what it takes to compete for a championship."
The Bears were 10-3 last season, tied USC for the conference title and have 14 returning starters, including All-American receiver and returner DeSean Jackson and quarterback Nate Longshore. "This is the first time [in Tedford’s tenure] that we will have a quarterback come back and play for us who played the previous year. We have a lot of confidence in Nate; he’s very, very smart and tough. He’s like a coach on the field." Tedford also thinks there won’t be much drop-off at running back with Justin Forsett stepping in to fill in for Marshawn Lynch.
Following up on the Les Miles theme, Tedford also noted Cal’s September 1 opener against SEC power Tennessee (a 35-18 loss last season in Knoxville), to be played at Memorial Stadium in Berkeley. "It’s not about revenge, but about redemption. But it’s on ourselves to reach our full potential.
"We can be successful any given Saturday, but we have to bring our "A" game each and every week to be successful." About Miles specifically, Tedford said "He’s welcome to his opinion. Our motivation is to win a conference championship and a national championship."
Cal is picked for second in the conference by the writers and has Oregon State and USC at home this season, but must travel to Oregon and UCLA.
More to come from Pac-10 Football Media Day . . .
Oregon’s Mike Bellotti was very clear: "We are as excited about this season as we were disappointed by the end of last season. There was some introspection by coaches and players on how to be better. We had a good ‘clear the air’ meeting this spring."
After starting 7-2 (including a gift "win" in Eugene over Oklahoma), the Ducks lost their last four games, including a 38-8 drubbing by BYU in the Las Vegas Bowl to finish 7-6. Oregon has 14 starters returning, including quarterback Dennis Dixon, who played baseball during the spring and summer and will only return to Eugene on Friday.
Bellotti feels the offense won’t miss a beat with the introduction of Chip Kelly as offensive coordinator after Gary Crowton left for LSU. Kelly’s specialty is the spread offense, essentially the same program as run by Crowton. "On defense, we have holes to fill and we need leadership in the defensive front," Bellotti said. He emphasized that the "turnover-takeaway margin is the most important element in winning or losing."
Asked about LSU coach Les Miles’ comments about how LSU’s road through the SEC to get to a national championship game will be much harder than USC’s road through the Pac-10, Bellotti said "There’s always a perception problem [with the Pac-10]. The reality is that the SEC is tremendous conference and that area feels football is biggest thing in the world.
"I would take the Pac-10 in any one game, though. We have creative coaching and can throw the ball in this conference and that’s a great equalizer."
The Ducks were picked for sixth in the conference by the media panel.
Oregon State is expected to be a contender in the conference race with 17 starters back from a 10-4 season that included a home win against USC. Unfortunately, the funeral for football services coordinator Jim Gilstrap, who passed away last Friday at age 65, was held today and no one from OSU was able to attend the Pac-10 Football Media Day event.
The Beavers were picked for fifth by the media panel.
More to come from Pac-10 Football Media Day . . .
At the Pac-10 Football Media Day, Washington head coach Tyrone Willingham sounded positive about the Huskies’ chances this season while Washington State coach Bill Doba didn’t seem as sure.
Willingham acknowledged that his team (5-7 last year, 12 starters returning) will be a lot different without all-everything quarterback Isaiah Stanback, but he was excited about the possibilities with redshirt freshman Jake Locker at the controls.
"One of the cores of our football team will be our front seven if everyone’s healthy," he said. "Our team starting to understand the character it takes to be a champion. If we can master that, I like where we will finish."
On the conference race, Willingham saw positives in the attention that having a "dominant team from a national standpoint" brings, but also emphasized that "there’s not a weak link in the conference; you have to be ready to play your best football every week. Even USC had a couple of close calls [in games they won], so things could have been different [last year]. We’re excited, we like our chances." Washington was picked for ninth by the media panel.
Washington State’s Doba noted that the Cougars (6-6 last year, 14 starters returning) "had some key injuries in the last three games in which we struggled. The seniors made a new commitment and they want to win. We had excellent leadership throughout spring ball."
Entering his fifth year as the WSU head coach, Doba gave the frankest assessment of his team of any coach in the conference: "Our defensive front is solid, our linebackers are solid, our kicking is solid. We have to find a couple of corners and I’m scared to death about our offensive line."
Quarterback Alex Brink is back and Doba noted that "this league is great for quarterbacks. Its grass basketball. People throw the ball and you had better be ready to defend all kinds of formations."
On the conference race, Doba said "USC has to beat themselves, to be quite honest about it, or have really bad luck. They are solid defensively and offensively. The rest of the league is pretty even; it’s a toss up. The key is staying healthy."
The Cougars were picked for eighth by the media panel.
More to come from Pac-10 Football Media Day . . .
USC was unanimously selected by a 39-member media panel to win its fifth straight Pac-10 Conference football championship. It’s the fifth year in a row that the Trojans have been selected and they have won the last four titles.
That’s nowhere close to a record, however. USC was picked to win the conference for 18 years in a row from 1965-82 and won 10 times. The last time UCLA was picked to win was in 1998 (and the Bruins did win, going undefeated in the conference).
For the 2007 season, California was picked for second with 323 points with UCLA trailing in third (305), followed by Arizona State (242), Oregon State (237), Oregon (226), Arizona with 162, then Washington State (115) in eighth, Washington ninth (98) and Stanford tenth (47).
The media day program was lengthy, with more than 100 writers, photographers and free-loaders on site. An entire room was devoted to the distribution of piles of media guides from the ten schools and the Pac-10. The combined weight was so heavy that many writers brought wheeled luggage with them to store it all.
There was also a nice media gift, a sort of padded backpack which was handy for all of the media guides if you didn’t bring your own wheelbarrow.
And, of course, there were plenty of refreshments, with two continental breakfast stations and two lines for the buffet lunch. The buffet was a carbo-loaders delight and included caesar salad, a mixed green salad, a breaded and baked chicken dish, penne marinara, garlic bread and rolls and a choice of cannoli or cake (or both). There wasn’t much for the house staff to take back at the end of the event.
Pac-10 Associate Commissioner Jim Muldoon ended the mass session by reminding the media that Pac-10 Basketball Media Day wasn’t far off: November 1.
More to come on Pac-10 Football Media Day . . .
After the mass session ended at Thursday’s Pac-10 Football Media Day, each school’s coach and attending player met with the media in smaller, one-on-one sessions in an adjacent meeting room. UCLA coach Karl Dorrell sat at a round table surrounded by local media for more than an hour, answering some questions about football and a lot about the Eric Scott situation.
On the Scott issue, Dorrell suggested that once the facts of the case are exposed, the case will "go away." There were lots of whispers among those looking on about reports that the residence that was entered by Scott, Jesus DeAlba and Timothy Williams was that of a relative of DeAlba.
On football, Dorrell was asked about how much of a role he will have with the offense during the season since he took a larger role with some of the play-calling last season, Dorrell was firm: "Jay [Norvell] will call the plays."
Bruce Davis told reporters that he would be lining up on the wide side of the field consistently this year, away from the tight end, to try and get a better shot at rushing the quarterback. He’s quite confident in the play of Nikola Dragovic and UC Davis transfer Tom Blake to replace Justin Hickman at the other end spot.
In addition, Davis said that freshman Brian Price from Crenshaw and sophomore Jerzy Siewierski could be key contributors behind starting tackles Kevin Brown and Brigham Harwell.
More to come from Pac-10 Football Media Day . . .
Senior defensive end Bruce Davis was asked about the differences going into the defense’s second year with coordinator DeWayne Walker at Pac-10 Football Media Day on Thursday:
"We’re lot more comfortable about his system and how to play it. I can understand it and we’ve added new things and we’ve all bought into his system.
"We’re a more mature football team now and everyone is working for one cause. We all trust each other. The communications are much better than in recent years and we know what we have to do to win games now.
"We have 25 seniors now and we know each other very well. We lost some games we shouldn’t have [last season] and we don’t want to go out there and do that again. There’s nothing in college football we haven’t seen and we’re ready to play for each other.
Asked about what will make the difference this season, he added "We’re going to outwork everybody in the country.
You don’t have to be the best team in the country each Saturday; you have to be the best team against who you play each Saturday."
More to come from Pac-10 Football Media Day . . .
UCLA coach Karl Dorrell was asked about the high expectations for this UCLA team with 20 returning starters and a win over USC last season at Pac-10 Football Media Day:
>> "It still comes down to whether we are mature enough to handle that kind of information [high pre-season rankings]. This team has the maturity to do it.
"The coaching staff and players are in place to be a very good football team. We told the team, ‘you’re not going to sneak up on anybody, you’re going to have to perform’ and they have reacted to that stress and pressure. They did a tremendous job this summer and they understand that expectation."
>> Dorrell underlined that last year’s USC game was "a great win for us and does a lot for our program. It’s a great feeling to be able to beat them in the Rose Bowl when they’re supposed to be on their way to the national championship game. It wasn’t pretty by any means, but we have the W in the win column and that does a lot for our confidence
"We know we can play with anyone, and to get what you want to get, you have to know that."
More to come from Pac-10 Football Media Day . . .
The most-discussed coach on Football Media Day was LSU's Les Miles, who said a few weeks ago that he’d love to meet USC for the national championship, but that LSU has a much harder road through the SEC than USC does facing schools like Washington, Stanford and UCLA.
So UCLA coach Karl Dorrell was asked if he appreciated being labeled as one of the "pansies from the Pac-10"!
"This is a competitive environment in college football and this just draws attention to the impression that this conference needs to continue to improve our reputation.
"For people to say there’s one school in this conference [USC] and there’s everybody else, we don’t like that impression. It makes us want to make us do our job better.
"Our measuring stick is the bowl games and I’m one of the teams who lost last year. We have to do a better job, me included, because I lost mine last year, to get the reputation and credibility of the conference up."
More to come from Pac-10 Football Media Day . . .
UCLA coach Karl Dorrell was effusive in his praise for new offensive coordinator Jay Norvell during his session at Pac-10 Football Media Day:
>> "I am excited to bring Jay here. We tried to get him before when he was in the NFL but it just didn’t work out.
"This time he was excited to come to UCLA and put his stamp on a great program. We have a good offensive foundation and we speak the same language to a T, the same terminology. My expectations are my expectations."
>> Dorrell recalled that he trumpeted the upcoming improvement in the UCLA defense last season with the arrival of then-new defensive coordinator DeWayne Walker. He expects the same for the offense with Norvell. "They have very similar attributes: he’s a strong communicator, he’s very demanding, he’s very well organized and he is going to get in people’s faces."
>> On the Bruin offense, Dorrell said that "quarterback play is going to really be important. The quarterback has to be able to handle a lot of information and both Ben Olson and Patrick Cowan have extensive playing experience. They can handle what it takes to perform at the level we’re looking for."
>> Dorrell also stressed that the addition of Joe Cowan (injured last year) will help significantly in the passing game.
More to come from Pac-10 Football Media Day . . .
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