The Pac-12 Getting stronger!

[CougFan1980]

With Lincoln Riley making the move to USC, Dan Lanning being hired by the University of Oregon, Kalen DeBoer being hired by the Huskies, and Jake Dickert being named the head coach of our Cougs. the Pac-12 is getting better coaches, and that will help market the league across the nation and will help in recruiting. USC, Washington, WSU, and Oregon will be better and that will help for our push for the Pac12 to make the playoffs for the first time in awhile. Hopefully, we can make the Rose bowl in the next three years! I have faith in Coach Dickert and the outstanding coaching staff he has put together! Defense wins championships as coach Saban and Alabama have shown; and coach Jake Dickert is one of the bright young defensive minds in the game! Go Cougs!

 

[WASH ST A&M FAN]

Until any of those coaches actually win consistently & don’t lose games to teams they shouldn’t, I’m In wait & see mode.

Football needs to get more important out West & that’s a long turn of the wheel from what I personally witnessed. From HS games I’ve attended the past 3yrs from WA, ID, MT, OR, UT, AZ the Gap is HUGE vs the Midwest & Down South. It starts & ends there.

 

[cr8zyncalif]

Well...the PAC is marginally stronger. Have to agree that Riley at SC is a significant improvement over Mr. mediocre Helton. Not sure that Lanning is an upgrade over Cristobal, though he may be somewhat less arrogant. Looks to me like it is about a push. DeBoer is certainly an upgrade over Jimmy, but I'm not sure that UW maximized their benefit...DeBoer looks to me like a slightly better version of Helton. UW should be able to consistently get 7-8 wins with the guy. Yes, that is better than Jimmy, but it should be a disappointing hire to anybody who bleeds purple and pee. If he can't consistently deliver at least 9 wins he will be gone in 3-4 years. Dickert is sane and rational, and seems to be a leader. On balance, that probably is an upgrade over Rolo if his OC proves out. Net/net for the league is a plus, but not as big a plus as we might have seen if UW had a fully competent AD and Oregon had made the sort of hire that uncle Phil could have paid for if they had seen it coming a bit earlier. Speaking of which, how did the UO AD get surprised by this? Everybody knew that Mario buddy had a soft spot for Miami, and Miami's coach was clearly on a path toward getting fired. Must have been a mix of UO arrogance and Mullens ignorance that blinded them to the probability of Mario being seduced away.

Long story short, the league is better overall, as you suggest. But nowhere near as far ahead as they could have been if UW and UO had done better.

 

[CougSinceBirth]

I really like the Lanning hire. And if he plucks Florida State's OC, I think they'll improve. Everything I've read is it's been Kirby's scheme but Lanning is the guy who really executes.

@chipdouglas may be a better source of info than I, as I believe he has some tie to UGA/SEC.

Lanning was a guy I had on my WSU list.

 

[CougInSpain]

Now if we could just get our new PAC12 Commissioner to alter the schedules to mimic the SEC's approach to scheduling, it would make us even stronger.

 

[Cougsocal]

Traditionally, the Pac-12 has always hired coaches on the cheap, we traditionally spent less on facilities than the other power 5 conferences. For years we got away with it because of the rich SoCal recruiting base. USC was the prime offender of the "why spend when you don't have to" mindset. The downward spiral began. When the conference thought they had come into money, they chose to build, while continuing to neglect coaching. The downward spiral continued. The Riley hire is huge in my opinion. It will set a bench mark for the rest of the conference. But let's not kid ourselves, Oregon and UW, school who could have spent money and gone big, went cheap, once again. If this continues, we could face the 1960-70s situation again, the big fish and minnows.

We will see what Stanford does, they have more money than god. They can spend, they can compete with USC if they choose to, as the better, richer school, in a much nicer community. They don't have the constraints of the public schools either. If they don't try to compete, and do an Oregon/UW, the rest of the conference will likely resign itself to USC coattail riding.

 

[roses04]

Until the top recruits on the West Coast stay out West we haven't turned the corner. As long as Alabama, Miami, Ohio St and others keep grabbing the top recruits from the West, we have will still have a problem. It will take a few recruiting cycles to figure out where we stand there. As Walden used to say, it's not just the X's and O's, is the Jimmys and Joes.

 

[roses04]

Now if we could just get our new PAC12 Commissioner to alter the schedules to mimic the SEC's approach to scheduling, it would make us even stronger.

He is talking about moving to an 8 game pac 12 schedule, to match other conferences.