Say goodbye to the Rose Bowl
(Written by kencraw)
Well, the Pac-10 decision is in and depending on how you view things it’s the best or worst case scenario. It’s the best because we get to play all the schools we care about every year. USC, UCLA, Oregon, Washington… we play them every year. It’s the worst because we have to play the best teams in the conference, USC, Oregon, etc., every year.
I was hoping we’d go with the division game record for deciding who goes to the championship game, so we could play USC and UCLA, but wouldn’t have to worry about beating them to get to the conference championship game. Now the Bears are going to be the class of the conference just to get to the conference championship game and then they’re going to have to re-beat USC most years. OK, some years it’ll be Arizona or UCLA, but it’s going to be the norm that USC is in there.
So, what do you care about? Do you care about having an easy schedule like Arizona was just gifted? Or do you care about having great matchups every year? Depending on what you think, this was either really good news or the worst possible scenario.
As for the conference as a whole, I’m still shocked, absolutely shocked that the northwest schools agreed to the limited LA exposure they’re going to get from now on. They really lose a lot by allowing the California schools to keep their rivalry. Yeah, they got the revenue sharing as a bone-throw, but it seems to me that’s not enough to compensate for the loss of exposure both on TV and in LA itself. But I guess I’m not the president of any of those schools, so that’s why it’s my job to be surprised.
On to ASU… GO BEARS!
October 21st, 2010 at 2:48 pm
When it comes down to it, not much has changed–we’re going to have to run the table to make the conf. championship/Rose Bowl. Same situation as now, besides the need to beat a UCLA/USC twice.
Anyway, we are so far away from being a Rose Bowl team that I’m not sure it really matters.
October 22nd, 2010 at 7:36 am
I agree that the NW schools gave up too much. But the alternatives were worse for them. USC and UCLA demanded to play Cal and Stanford every year and they call the shots. Because of this requirement, the NW schools were going to get the short end no matter what.
Keeping a nine game conf schedule was terrific. For the conf winner, it will be ten games. This will help significantly with the computer rankings. A one loss (or better) Pac 12 team will be in the national championship game.
The weakness I see is the conference championship game. All it takes is for one game to be played in Eugene, Boulder, Corvallis or Pullman to see the game moved to NFL quality stadia in Seattle, Glendale, Oakland or Pasadena.
As for Cal, I think there are factors that help a Rose Bowl appearance. Win the division, lose the conf championship and see the winner in the national championship. This is a more likely scenario than the current path.
Starting next year, the SEC and the Pac 12 will dominate the national championship game. And it’s hard to win the national championship if you don’t get into the game.
October 22nd, 2010 at 9:16 am
Hey Ken–
I’ve got a question on my Pick’Em and I don’t see another place to contact you about it…
I made my selections for this week on Wednesday morning, but today I received a reminder e-mail telling me I hadn’t yet submitted them. What happened?
Now, it shows that I failed to pick the UCLA/Oregon game and will, no doubt, affect my overall score. I had submitted a 52-6 Oregon victory.
Just for the record–and in case my REselections get wiped out AGAIN–I submitted the following scores for tomorrow’s games:
13-24 Cal over ASU
24-35 Furd over WSU
33-30 Washington over Arizona
Is there anything you can do to make sure I don’t lose these picks, too?! (In a prefect world, I’d love to get credit for my UCLA/Oregon pick, and thereby maintain my pretty decent position in the overall rankings…)
[This didn’t happen in retaliation to my “blah, blah, blah” nitpick, did it? :)]
Go Bears!!