Today is our final Pac-12 college football roundtable as TSS Associate Editors Bart Doan and Terry Johnson join staff writer Kevin Causey and a special rotating guest in our weekly roundtable discussing all things college football.
So far we’ve discussed the most improved teams and the most intriguing games. For the final part of our Pac-12 roundtable we are once again joined by Dale Newton of the Oregon Ducks site The Duck Stops Here and Kyle Kensing of The CFB Huddle.
Question: Who do you expect to be the Pac-12 champion?
Dale Newton
On Twitter @DSH_Newton
At PAC-12 Media Day the conference’s beat writers have successfully picked the conference champion something like 20 times in the last 24 years. This season, they won’t be picking the Ducks to repeat.
As many as six of the league’s members are legitimate contenders, each with their own weaknesses and question marks that preclude labeling one as the clear favorite or dominant power.
USC probably gets the nod however. They return a senior quarter in Cody Kessler who passed for touchdowns with just five interceptions last season. Safety Su’a Cravens anchors the defense, and sophomores Juju Smith and Adoree Jackson provide star power. Jackson had four touchdowns on special teams and defense last year. Wide receiver Smith grabbed 51 balls last season for 651 yards and five TDs, and with Nelson Agholor departed for the Philadelphia Eagles Smith is likely to emerge as the next great Trojan receiver.
If Steve Sarkisian and his staff find a way to overcome the loss of Leonard Williams and Hayes Pullard on a somewhat suspect defense, the Trojans could make the College Football Playoff. But Sark has never won more than 9 games as a head coach. He remains a question mark himself in a conference loaded with great coaches.
The Ducks have plenty of talent in their quest for their fourth conference title in the last seven years. Royce Freeman and Thomas Tyner give them two of the best running backs in the country. Byron Marshall and Bralon Addison (back from 2014 knee surgery) form the nucleus of a deep and talented receiver corps. Four starting linebackers return, and 6-7 290-pound DeForest Buckner and 6-4 310 Alex Balducci anchor an experienced defensive line.
But the Ducks have to replace Marcus Mariota, and fifth-year graduate transfer Vernon Adams still hasn’t graduated from Eastern Washington. Some one has to prove they can operate the offense and distribute the ball, and that could fall to junior Jeff Lockie, who has four years in the program but no career starts.
Oregon is also alarmingly young in the secondary after graduating four seniors in the defensive backfield rotation and losing two other players to attrition. The losses include Consensus All-American Ifo Ekpre-Olomu and ballhawking free safety Erick Dargan.
Arizona returns two sensational sophomores of their own in quarterback Anu Solomon and thousand-yard rusher Nick Wilson. UCLA has loads of home-grown talent but may start a freshman quarterback. Stanford is led by senior quarterback Kevin Hogan and a deep, strong offensive line but they’re replacing the heart of their defense.
If a dominant, 12-win team emerges from this puzzle it will be a triumph of coaching and development.
Kyle Kensing
On Twitter @Kensing45
Oregon remains the team to beat, and the Ducks stated that rather emphatically last year when they routed Stanford and Arizona in the final month of the season. Both the Cardinal and Wildcats had back-to-back wins against Oregon, suggesting cracks in the foundation of Duck dominance.
Replacing Marcus Mariota is obviously challenging, but Oregon won league titles with Jeremiah Masoli and Darron Thomas. Either Vernon Adams or Jeff Lockie can be as good as Masoli, and certainly as good as Thomas, particularly when you surround either with the best backfield in the Pac-12 (Royce Freeman/Thomas Tyner) and best wide receiving corps (Byron Marshall/Devon Allen/Bralon Addison/Darren Carrington with TE Pharaoh Brown to boot).
Defensively, Oregon made strides in the front seven. DeForest Buckner may be the best interior lineman in the conference, and the Ducks have a talented and diverse linebacker corps. The secondary has ground to make up, replacing Ifo Ekpre-Olomu, but Reggie Daniels is a proven playmaker and I love the upside of Arrion Springs.
It’s still very much Oregon’s conference to lose.
Bart Doan:
On Twitter @TheCoachBart
Oregon looks stout and the north appears to be an easier trek to navigate than the south, plus you get Southern Cal at home. Arizona just smells like they have a potential title run in them for whatever reason. Their in-state partners are top 15 timber as well.
But I’ll go Southern Cal in a revenge win over Oregon in the Pac 12 title game. We’re placing a lot of faith in Sark here, but from a “questions” perspective, they have the fewest it feels like. The real stinker of it is that USC will have to walk through a minefield during a thunder storm holding up a 9-iron in the air in terms of their schedule. The Notre Dame game doesn’t count to the Pac 12 standings, but it’s just assumed that unless DOOM happens, the Pac 12 champ will have earned playoff respect.
So we’ll go Cody Kessler, JuJu Smith, a huge offensive line and talented secondary and slip a championship cap on the Trojans in late July.
Kevin Causey:
On Twitter @CFBZ
A wise man once said “To be the man, you have to beat the man.” Of course, he also then followed up his statement with a huge WOOOOOOOO.
The last six years in the Pac-12 have seen either Oregon or Stanford carry the banner for the league. The Pac-12 South really stepped up last year with five teams getting nine or more victories. It is no longer a foregone conclusion that the winner of the Pac-12 North will win the championship.
But….I’m the type that has to see it to believe it. If I’m picking a winner of the conference, I definitely could see a team from the “South” winning but until they do, my pick is the Oregon Ducks.
Terry Johnson:
On Twitter @SectionTPJ
Make no mistake about it: the Pac-12 is the deepest conference in the land. There’s so much talent in the league that I could make a case for seven different teams to win the championship.
So, which one of the seven am I going to choose?
Unlike many in the media, I am not picking Oregon to repeat. Sure, the Ducks are loaded on offense again this season. However, UO finished 111th nationally in pass defense last year, allowing an average of 264.3 yards per game. Considering that they’ll need to break in three new starters in the secondary, I don’t see that number improving significantly this fall.
That’s why I am picking USC to win the Pac-12 this season. The Trojans have one of the most explosive passing attacks in the conference, averaging 296.6 yards per game and 8.4 yards per attempt. SC was also super efficient throwing the ball, completing 69.1% of its passes with an amazing 39/5 TD-to-INT ratio.
This precision passing gives the Trojans a decided advantage over Oregon, which is why they’ll win the Pac-12 title.
