It would be UCLA. Jim Mora is absolutely killin' it down there. Their defense especially is going to be nasty, nasty, nasty in a couple of years.

I'll be interested to see if Mora sticks there for awhile or try's to jump back into the NFL after some success.

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Mora wants to be at UW. When Sark moves on, Mora will be heading North.

Call me crazy, but I really would rather have Wilcox than either Sark or Mora.

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3elieve

Maybe once upon a time that was true. But I cant see him building up UCLA stronger then they've been in decades and then leaving for another pac 12 job, even if it is his alma mater. Sounds like UW wishful thinking to me. Sort of like the Duck fans who think all we have to do is snap our fingers and Chris Pederson will come running over from Boise State to take over, or that when Aliotti retires Wilcox will automatically come to replace him as DC.

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Mora has a lot of Carroll in him. Very vibrant. He exudes energy and charisma. The fact that he's been able to stand toe to toe and win against the likes of Lane Kiffin for the top recruits is understandable. If he can put it together in the next year or two, I can see him having a Carrollesque run in the next decade. SC is going to have to fish or cut bait because Kiffin simply cannot compete with Mora at virtually any level. The real impact of the sanctions are going to be felt in 2013/14 as the lack of depth is going to be most pronounced right now. And if UCLA gets to a point where they have a class that never lost to SC, they could be headed to a dark down period like the 80s/90s. Mora already can lock up just about any recruit that SC wants right now.

They have all the ingredients. Quality education, Los Angeles market, tons of history, NFL caliber coaching, and the guy across the street Kiffen sucks.

I read an article recently about how many Olympic medal winners they have had, more than many countries have had.

Both USC and UCLA have a great Olympic tradition, though USC has the edge in medals. http://about.usc.edu/history/uscs-olympic-heritage/

Edit: this is actually a better link because it has updated counts for both Unis through the 2012 summer games. http://ucla-usc.com/site/82804fbdc4c34a ... .html#2840

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Nice article. Thanks. I must not have understood that article I read. It wasn't real clear looking back at it. Maybe it meant 14th in the 2008 Olympic medal count? Still not sure lol. The article you posted is more clear.



Also, that 2nd link didn't work for me, error message.

Hmm. It works fine for me. Here's the relevant info:

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Right now the future of the Pac-12 is very murky.

While it's true that Mora has recruited well on paper, UCLA has been one of the Pac-10/Pac-12's best recruiting teams for years and years and it never translated. Last year UCLA posted a good record, but they folded like a chair when facing challenging competition. Plus, Jim Mora was a mostly terrible coach in the NFL, and I'm not going to forget that because UCLA over-achieved for one season. We'll see where they are at in a couple years but right now they lack the physicality of Stanford and the pure speed of Oregon. I think they are pretty much on par with teams like USC and Texas that haven't turned elite recruiting classes into elite football teams in recent times. That might change, but I'm still waiting to see a truly dominating team before I crown them.

Oregon was one of the best teams in the country last year, and they have most of their core group returning. If Oregon has more than 2 losses this year, I'm putting that squarely on the new coaching staff. Oregon's group of players are good enough to make the national championship game. But a new coaching staff means big time uncertainty. Chip Kelly may not have been the best college coach (Saban), but I'd argue that he was clearly the brightest one. That's hard to replace, and if there are philosophical differences with the new regime that could hold the ducks back as they were tailor fitted to Kelly's blueprint.

I'm still not sure about Shaw, but I under-estimated him last year. Harbaugh left a heck of a legacy behind, but Shaw managed it better in year two than year one. It was a small sample size, but I'm a fan of Kevin Hogan, so far I think he looks like a cross between Andrew Luck and Kirk Cousins. Their O-line and front seven are amazing. They play like bullies. Extremely physical. I don't think Stanford is better than Oregon, but Stanford is clearly the "toughest" team in the conference and maybe the most physical team in college football. They exposed Mariota as I thought they would in pretty much the same manner that Seattle exposed Kaepernick. Kaepernick still went on to nearly win a SB, though. Just the same, if Mariota can get by Stanford I think Oregon could potentially get to the national championship game.

I'm officially ambivalent on Sark. It's not that he's a bad coach but he strikes me as more suited to the NFL than the college game. He's a clever X's and O's guy, hires outstanding assistant coaches and is very smart, but he lacks recruiting panache and struggles with roster construction and you see the same glaring roster problems year after year (O-line in particular). He'd fit in well in the NFL especially if paired with a good GM. But in college, I think he's middle of the pack.

Rich-Rod really impressed me last season. It will be very hard to replace what Matt Scott gave them, but his system is known to get results from unheralded QBs. If we knew more about Arizona's QB situation I'd be tempted to pick them for the Pac-12 South.

I think Arizona State and Arizona could both be pretty good, depending on their QB situations. I'm also really interested in watching Cal. I like their new coach, and they've had a horrible QB situation the last few years so they pretty much have to have some improvement there.

As of today, not knowing all the newcomers and everything, id put my pac 12 power rankings like this:

Oregon, Stanford


UCLA (I think they're still a year or two away, but wouldn't be shocked to see them at Stanford/Oregons level)
Oregon State
Arizona State, Arizona, USC, Washington (these 4 could really go in any order)

Cal, Utah (Cal could jump higher)

Washington State







Colorado (will most likely go winless in the pac 12 and is one of the worst bcs conference teams in the country)

Just as an aside to kearly talking about Sark. He comes across to me as a great coordinator who's not necessarily head coach material. I'm not sure he has the big time Alpha Dog personality that it requires to be a big time college coach. I'm kind of worried that Helfrich might be the same way, but we'll see.

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Cal is an interesting program, they really should have been better when you look at the lineage of NFL talent they have produced it might be as good as anyone in recent years.

Rodgers,Lynch,Forsett,Best,Mack,Schwartz, C Stevens, D Jackson, Morrah,Allen,Hawkins,Mebane,Alualu,Jordan,Bishop,Decoud,Kendricks,Asomugha,Conte

I do think he's head coach material. I think he has a lot more charisma and camera presence than your stereotypical career coordinator type. I'd also consider this: think about how amazing Pete Carroll's track record is at identifying assistant coaching talent. He not only hand-picked Sark as his OC, but was also grooming him to take over at USC, that was until Sark bolted for UW. So if Pete thought that much of him, I think that says quite a bit just on it's own.

I do agree though about the lack of alpha dog in Sark, that gene that Jim Harbaugh has in abundance. Not that Sark sorely lacks in that area, but I think he might be a better coach if he had more of an edge to him. When things don't go UW's way, he doesn't get pissed, he shrugs his shoulders (same thing with Pete, though Pete exudes more self-confidence while doing it. Sark might as well say "aw shucks"). I think in any other profession, I'd consider that a good thing. I think as a coach though, you need to always have at least a little spark of intensity (or have resolute body language ala Tony Dungy, Lovie Smith, etc.). Sark has neither, and I think it's a valid detraction.

I think Mora will keep UCLA pretty competitive in the PAC-12... however...

He's still Jim Mora. And the way his team were systematically destroyed in that Bowl game to Baylor brought back sooooo many memories of his time here.

I'd buy stock in USC. Because in 12 months time Kiffin will be gone and they'll probably appoint a proper coach.

Next year is the last year of scholarship sanctions for USC.

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And?

I'm not sure if I agree with the Pete Carroll angle. I love Pete. He's a great coach and I'm not sure there's any coach in the NFL i'd trade him for. He does put together amazing staffs, but there's no evidence that he produces great head coaches.

So far his tree is Kiffin, Sark and now Gus Bradley. I think Sark is probably the most promising of that bunch but overall its a pretty underwhelming group, imo.

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Sark is totally an alpha dog. Did you ever watch him play? I went to school with him and sat down at the sidelines. The guy is VERY vocal and he knows what he's talking about. He knew it when he was 20, and he certainly knows it now.

Part of what you're seeing is that Washington has really struck out on some coaches. Slick Rick was a showman and proven phony. Willingham was ordered to clean up the program, and that's precisely what he did, and got fired for it. I get it... but you can't have it both ways. So he did his job, but he was low-key to a fault and entirely focused on the academics side and getting kids to graduate and clean things.

Sarkisian is trying to strike the balance of being able to get a crowd behind him, run a clean program, win (most of all this one), and build long-term sustained success.

You have to look at who his major influences were and how they operated. 1- Lavell Edwards. One of the all time greats. He brought the short passing game to the college ranks and used TE's and FB's as primary receivers and dominated some very big schools with very inferior talent. But he was the most mellow and stoic guy ever. I've seen him rip into players before, but he always did it out of sight, because they had an agreement. We all maintain dignity. Players loved Lavell for that, and they showed it with their play. Steve is doing the same thing. 2- Norm Chow. A madman. Literally. Norm is the one who brought Sark into coaching after his CFL career dried up and he went into the telecom industry. Chow convinced him to go into coaching, so Sark dropped everything and went and coached at UNLV, USC, and then UW. He wasn't going to be a coach, and he got into the game late. Chow is really weird in how he deals with players. He is a brilliant guy and has a doctorate in psychology I believe, and likes to play mental games. It works at times. It worked well in 1996 when BYU went 14-1 (one loss was to UW) and finished the season in the top 5 (and should have played in the NC game!!!!). Sark was the QB on that team.

He saw great success with low key coaches at the helm on the teams he played on. Now... could he go out and coach like Pete? Sure. But, he's not going to be in the position to until he establishes something I think. I think he'll get more and more like that as he builds. This is kind of the win or it's not going to happen year. I think he knows that. But he knows that to build a program you have to do a ton of work to take it from scratch and do so. That's essentially what he's done. That's precisely was Edwards did at BYU. That's what Pete did at USC (but he had a lot of good talent and a good rep having come from the NFL and USC has enormous history).

I think Sark is walking the line between the two types of coaches that he's worked with the most and finding his way. He is a good coach. He has no problem getting in anybody's face. But he also seems to know that he can't be Steve Spurrier as a coach, even though he was kind of like that as a player. Kids are too sensitive and leave if you do that kind of stuff now. The Bobby Knight school of coaching is closed.

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It's true that Sark was a fiery/passionate QB, but I think he's been pretty different from that as a coach, at least in terms of tone and body language.

It's funny that you mention Steve Spurrier, because that's exactly the comparison I would make personality wise. Both are low-key personalities that rarely crack smiles but also rarely show negative emotion. Spurrier exudes the same outward projection whether his team just went 11-1 or 7-6. Sark's a similar animal.

Of course, Spurrier is far better at recruiting and runs a college style offense, so he'll always be a better college coach (I think Spurrier is among of the best in the college ranks).

Back to the alpha dog thing. Being an alpha dog doesn't mean being Bobby Knight or Jim Mora. It doesn't mean being a hardass. It simply means that the coach will leave no stone unturned to win (even if it means taking "ruthless" measures) and exudes a hyper-competitive personality. Jim Harbaugh is the ultimate example, and he's practically a players coach. Pete Carroll has a few alpha dog type traits if you look close enough, and there isn't a bigger player's coach anywhere. I just don't get the sense from Sark that he has that "edge" personality wise that drives guys like Harbaugh and Pete. Neither does Spurrier (IMO), but Spurrier is still a great coach. So this isn't a dealbreaker or anything, but do I think it's something that holds Sark back just a little? I do.

I didn't say he produced great head coaches. I said he knows coaching talent. Tom Cable, Dan Quinn, Jeremy Bates, Kippy Brown, Kris Richard(!), and Ken Norton jr. are all terrific assistant coaches. I even like Darrell Bevell, even though he's basically Greg Knapp 2.0.

I guess you could argue that he hasn't produced great head coaches yet, and fair point, but it's still pretty early for that. Even though he was at USC for a long time, it's somewhat uncommon for college level assistant coaches to get noteworthy head coaching jobs. He's only been in the NFL for 3 years, and he's already gotten one of his assistants a head coaching job.

Also, Kiffin was most likely a case of quasi-nepotism (Carroll considers himself a disciple of Lane Kiffin's father).