On this weeks edition of The Student Section college football roundtable, we head out west to talk about the Pac-12 Conference. TSS Associate Editors Bart Doan and Terry Johnson join staff writer Kevin Causey and special rotating guests in our weekly roundtable discussing all things college football.
To talk about Pac-12 football as we are joined by Bloguin’s Pac-12 expert Dale Newton of the Oregon Ducks site The Duck Stops Here and our good friend Kyle Kensing of The CFB Huddle.
Question: Which team will be the most improved in the Pac-12?
Dale Newton
On Twitter @DSH_Newton
The Cal Bears enter head coach Sonny Dykes third year with a two-year starter at quarterback in Jared Goff who showed dramatic improvement as a sophomore, passing for 3973 yards with 35 touchdowns and just 7 interceptions (18 and 10 on a 1-win team in 2013). Goff has most of his chief weapons returning including 1000-yard rusher Daniel Lasco (5.3 yards a carry, 12 touchdowns) and leading receiver Kenny Lawler (54 catches, 9 TDs).
Dykes, Goff and the Bears endured bad news last year, just missing bowl eligibility at 5-7. They started 4-1 last season, and only a 36-point fourth quarter comeback by Arizona (capped by a 47-yard Anu Solomon to Austin Hill Hail Mary on the last play of the game) kept them from a 5-0 start.
They showed resilience, though, responding to that heartbreak with a 59-56 win over Colorado in two overtimes, then besting Washington State on the road in a 60-59 shootout. In October they lost 36-34 to UCLA after leading late in the fourth quarter. Marcus Rios intercepted a Goff pass at the Bruin two-yard line with 51 seconds left.
In November, a porous pass defense allowed Cody Kessler and USC to build a 31-2 lead in the Coliseum, but Goff and the offense rallied for four touchdowns to close within 38-30, an onside kick bouncing just out of reach with a minute and a half to play.
All those close games and near misses suggest that Dykes is building a competitive program in Berkeley. Linebacker Michael Barton is back to lead the defense, which gave up an alarming 61 touchdowns last season. Barton is joined by veteran linebackers Hardy Nickerson and Jalen Jefferson, a trio that’s combined to start 54 games.
The secondary remains the chief problem, scorched repeatedly in the pass-happy PAC-12 last fall. Dykes and his staff recruited 5 new defensive backs for this season, including junior college transfer Derron Brown, who participated in spring practice. Four safeties sat out spring ball with injuries. Dykes flatly told reporters the position was “a mess.”
Cal’s 2015 schedule sets up perfectly for another encouraging start, and gives defensive coordinator Art Kaufman precious time to patch the secondary. They open with home games versus Grambling State and San Diego State before traveling to Texas to face Charlie Strong and the still-rebuilding Longhorns on September 19th. They open league play with conference bottom feeders Washington and Washington State before traveling to Utah on October 10th, then get 12 days to prepare for a Thursday night game versus UCLA at the Rose Bowl.
If Goff stays healthy and gets a hot hand, he could carry this team to a 5-2/6-1 start and a national ranking by the time they meet USC in The Coliseum on Halloween Night. The Bears have lost to the Trojans 11 straight times. Snap that string and their junior quarterback will be named mayor of Berkeley.
Kyle Kensing
On Twitter @Kensing45
I’ll provide two responses here: One team, Stanford, will improve to a level at which it’s competing for the conference championship. The Cardinal suffered a dip last season without Derek Mason coordinating the defense, but Stanford’s real woes were on offense.
Kevin Hogan finished 2014 on a nice upswing, and the Cardinal won some meaningful games, including at UCLA. Christian McCaffrey’s move to running back gives the Stanford offense a new look, and the defense should be improved in its second year under Lance Anderson.
The other answer is Colorado. The Buffs improvement may go unrecognized, especially if they finish out of the bowl picture again. But that possibility is due more to the overall strength of the Pac-12 South than an indictment of CU. Mike MacIntyre is doing a great job, evident in the final scores of some of Colorado’s losses.
The Buffs were right there against UCLA, Cal, Utah and Oregon State. Flip one or two plays in each, and Colorado goes bowling. CU returns a ton of players, and I suspect the Buffs pull off at least one major upset.
Bart Doan:
On Twitter @TheCoachBart
Realistically, it was probably never fair for anyone to assume Steve Sarkisian was going to come in and be some destroyer of souls in his first year like Southern Cal was back in the Pete Carroll era. We’re still in the window of time when the NCAA unfairly undressing their program is still having some impact, though every year the significance of that gets lessened. You can have a ton of talent, but you still need a ton of depth.
Still, when they won at Stanford in week two, USC was back, and souls should be on guard. Then Boston College came, and it ended at 9-4 and depending on who you were, you were either disappointed or married to the fact that your expectations were too high to begin with. USC loses a bunch, but the offense should be amazing. There’s no “wait til coach gets his guys in.” USC is full of “his guys” no matter who your coach is. That’s what coaches aspire to fill their programs with. JuJu Smith will be a house hold name. Cody Kessler is one of the more sure things at quarterback in the country. The secondary is good. The front seven will feel losses at times, but there’s enough talent on the back end, especially Adoree’ Jackson, another household name type soon.
The schedule though, sucks, flat out, so everything will be earned (cue Nike ad). At Oregon, at Notre Dame, and an early season test at Arizona State after an emotionally charged tangle with Stanford means things could derail to 9-4 again if not careful. But the hunch here is that it doesn’t, and woe be to the souls.
Kevin Causey:
On Twitter @CFBZ
The two teams that have the most room for improvement are Colorado and Washington State but I have zero confidence in either program. The team with the highest upside is Cal but I just don’t think their defense will allow them to improve enough to really make a difference in the win column.
So the team I’m going with is USC. Yeah, I know…they weren’t horrible last year. They finished ranked 20th in the final AP poll of 2014. I think they will be the second best team in the league this season and they will be a Top 10 team (a lot closer to 10 then 1). If a team can go from No. 20 to No. 10 then I think that’s a pretty big improvement because they higher the climb, the tougher the climb.
The Trojans will have better depth than they have had in recent years and their first twenty-two are among the most talented in the Nation.
Terry Johnson:
On Twitter @SectionTPJ
Thanks to some new coaches, Oregon State will be the most improved team in the Pac-12.
Please note that this is not a knock on Mike Riley, who deserves all of the credit in the world for making Beaver football what it is today. During his first stint at OSU, he inherited a program that hadn’t had a winning season since 1970 and laid the foundation for Dennis Erickson’s highly successful tenure. After a few years in the NFL, Riley returned to Corvallis in 2003, and guided the Beavers to more bowl games (8) than every other coach in school history combined (7).
It’s tough to argue with those results.
Yet, I still believe this year’s team will be better under the leadership of Gary Andersen.
Make no mistake about it: Andersen is one of the best defensive minds in college football. At Wisconsin, his Badger units were one of the most consistent in the land, ranking in the Top 10 in total defense in 2013 (7th) and 2014 (4th). He also fielded top-notch units at Utah State (14th in total defense in 2012) and Utah, where his Ute D limited Alabama to just 208 yards in the 2009 Sugar Bowl.
It’s also worth noting that the new defensive coordinator will be Kalani Sitake, whose Utah defense led the nation with 55 sacks last year.
With Andersen and Sitake calling the shots, the Beaver defense will be much more aggressive this season, resulting in more plays behind the line of scrimmage. By making more plays in the backfield, this unit will be much more dangerous than it was a year ago.
Even if – and it’s a big if – OSU struggles on defense, I still like their chances to make a bowl game this year because of the changes on the offensive side of the ball. Veteran play caller Dave Baldwin inherits an experienced offense that returns nine starters from last season’s squad, including leading rusher Storm Woods and top target Victor Bolden. He’ll install the same up-tempo spread attack that he used at Colorado State, where the Rams averaged 480.9 yards per game last year.
Adding the last two paragraphs together, it’s easy to see why the Beavers will turn things around this year. I wouldn’t be surprised if OSU is the most improved team in the country.
