Insta-reaction to developments throughout the conference …
1. Down goes Arizona.
The Hotline posited Thursday that a victory at Utah would give the Wildcats command of the race because of a fairly soft schedule into the middle of February.
As soon as I published the column, I thought: Now watch them lose to Colorado. (And so it goes on the prognosticating front.)
Sure enough, the Wildcats started Saturday’s game in Boulder like they were stuck in Salt Lake City: lethargic, spiritless and down 16 at halftime.
Granted, it’s a single loss after nine consecutive wins (a streak that began after the faceplant in the Bahamas).
And granted, it was a difficult turnaround: Draining game Thursday night in SLC, flight to Denver, noon tip Saturday in Boulder.
But did the performance hint at deeper problems? Coach Sean Miller seemed to indicate as much, saying after the game that he “can’t get them to play hard.”
“We do it for a while. I know we’ve had a win streak,” he said. “With our team, it’s really hard to get our guys to run as fast as they can. That’s not them. That’s me. I have a hard time reaching our guys.”
Miller’s view of his team has occasionally diverged from public perception, like when he said in late November: “The reality for us is we’re not that talented.”
That was an eye roller; his comments Saturday were not.
Effort, particularly on defense, has not been a strength: The Wildcats are No. 76 in adjusted defensive efficiency, according to the Pomeroy rankings. (Last year, they were 29th.)
Nor is it the only issue. It sure seems like something’s amiss with Allonzo Trier, who 2 of 5 from the field against Utah and 3 of 9 against Colorado.
Arizona needs Trier to set the bar for effort … for unwavering, fifth-gear effort — and he hasn’t done that, not yet.
If that’s a concern two months from now, the Wildcats won’t win four games in the NCAAs.
2. The Pac-12 holds its own in playoff payouts.
I mentioned this prominently in the Friday newsletter, but it’s worth repeating here: Forbes magazine contributor Kristi Dosh published a two-part series on College Football Playoff distributions.
The first was specific to 2017, the second a longer view that compared CFP money to BCS money and included total payouts over the four years of the playoff system (i.e., the semifinals and the New Year’s Six).
I added a calculation of my own: The playoff cash on a per-conference/per-school basis.
Using Dosh’s totals for each conference over four years and then dividing by the number of teams in each conference, the earnings are the following:
Big 12: $31 million (per school)
Big Ten: $27.3 million
Pac-12: $26.1 million
SEC: $25.3 million
ACC: $22.9 million
The Pac-12 benefits immensely from the Rose Bowl contract (as does the Big Ten), which pays the conference $40 million in years when it’s not a semifinal host.
It also pays big to have fewer teams: The 14-team Big Ten has generated $70 million more in revenue than the 10-team Big 12 but has less per school to show for it.
3. The NFL exodus begins.
The raw number of declarations matters less to the Pac-12’s outlook for next season than the team-specific impact: How many key players from the contenders are leaving?
Oregon State’s Ryan Nall is a first-rate running back, but his departure is unlikely to affect the division race or the conference’s prospects for the playoffs/New Year’s Six — the Beavers wouldn’t have been a contender with Nall and won’t be without him.
The same goes for Colorado cornerback Isaiah Oliver and Arizona State defensive lineman JoJo Wicker: Very good players on what appear to be non-elite teams.
To the extent that draft decisions will affect the conference outlook at the highest level, the early returns are not encouraging:
Washington defensive tackle Vita Vae, Stanford nose tackle Harrison Phillips, Washington State defensive lineman Hercules Mata’afa and USC tailback Ronald Jones have all declared.
We wait for news on Stanford’s Bryce Love, Washington’s Myles Gaskin and USC’s Deontay Burnett and Rasheem Green,
The deadline is Jan. 15.
4. Goodbye to Grinch.
I’ll profess to having wholly overlooked the news, announced in the middle of January 2015, that Washington State had hired Alex Grinch to oversee the Cougar defense.
A position coach at Missouri, he had never been a defensive coordinator or coached in the Pac-12; his arrival in the Palouse hardly seemed like a move destined to change the division dynamics.
Yet Grinch quickly substantiated Mike Leach’s faith. It was one of the shrewdest coaching hires in the conference this decade.
You’d be hard pressed to name a coordinator who had a greater impact in such a short time as Grinch. The Cougars soared from bottom tier to North contender in back-to-back seasons, and it wasn’t entirely because of Luke Falk.
On the contrary, Grinch’s defense, not the Air Raid, was the reason WSU finished just one game out in the division this fall.
Washington State’s defensive ranking in yards-per-play allowed, beginning in 2014 (the year before Grinch took charge):
2014: 103rd
2015: 86th
2016: 90th
2017: 34th
Now Grinch is off to Ohio State, as the co-defensive coordinator — a move made possible by the expansion of coaching staffs.
Whether the Cougars remain a factor in the post-Grinch era depends, to a large extent, on Leach replicating his success with the DC hire.
5. Command center results.
As many fans are probably aware, the conference made use of an officiating command center in 2017: All decisions in the replay booths in Pac-12 stadiums were reviewed concurrently by officials at conference HQ.
The primary concern with such a move, of course, was the likelihood that more cooks would cause more reviews, more delays, less rhythm and longer games.
The conference provided data on Friday:
* Average replay review time in 2017 was 59 seconds, compared to 1:01 in 2016.
* Number of stoppages for replays increased to 202 this season, up from 194.
Also noteworthy: the average length of games declined seven minutes, to 3:19. (The conference had made shortening game time a priority.)
The Hotline requested data specific to targeting calls — because targeting is such a hot topic and nuance is needed to fairly assess penalties — but was told that information won’t be available until the spring.
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