This is
Brian Dohn's sixth season covering UCLA after spending 4 1/2 years covering the Dodgers for the Daily News and other Los Angeles Newspaper Group papers. He graduated from Rutgers, where the first college football game was played in 1869. Sure, the Scarlet Knights suffered for a long time, but now RU is doing what Jerseyans always thought was possible. Winning at Rutgers also proves winning is possible everywhere else in the nation, so underachieving coaches better be careful. Now, if only men's hoops can turn it around.
Or.... Something else?
Like, scrap the BCS and go back to playing the Rose Bowl with the Big 10?
Balance the field with uniform admission requirements? (I know, I know. One can dream)
Work with the NCAA to provide fair opportunities for student-athletes to pay their bills without falling afoul of the rules?
There are a lot more important things than the ones listed. In fact, those three are among the least important to me.
I like the fact that now we play every other football team in the Pac-10 every year. If we expand to 12 teams, we will have to skip playing two teams each year, reduce the number of out of conference games we play, or extend the season. I'm also completely against a football playoff system for several reasons. What the Pac-10 needs now is more national exposure. If that means more visibility on ESPN, let's get on ESPN more often even though I don't like the network.
I don't understand why people are so fixated on ESPN. USC is in the Pac-10 and they don't have any problems with so-called "national exposure." Cade McNown and Deshaun Foster did have any problems with "visibility".
Build a winning program and the rest will follow. Hopefully, RN is up to the task casue we all know KD was not.
The right answer actually is "Get better Football Bowl affliations besides the toilet bowl, the dog food bowl and craps casino bowl"
Hanson's skills at getting good bowls for his teams remains pathetic. Almost commissioner malpractice!
I agree with Dan O. WHy is everyone so fixated on ESPN? I think a lot of people are forgetting that we play on something bigger and better than ESPN which is ABC (for those who dont know, ABC owns ESPN) .
And if we were a pac 10 conference there would be basketball games starting at 9 oclock west coast time and possible even later.
I think people inflate ESPN's influence on polls and selection commitee's. If your a good team, people will know .
As pointed out elsewhere, there ain't goin' to be no playoff system because the college presidents are against it. Period. Good decision. But they might bend to the idea of a Plus-1 (after all the bowls are played, and then choose the best two to have a "playoff."}
The Pac-10 is not going to go to a "Pac-12." The present system is beautiful and should not be changed.
Want more exposure? Then field a winning team. The great 1998 ucla team had plenty of exposure. The 1991 national champions (co) Washington was a college household name. The SC run at a three-peat in 2003-2005 got some national attention, as I recall.
Unless I'm mistaken, Hansen was commissioner of the ENTIRE PAC-10 conference, not just the football programs...
1. Hence, I suspect that the option regarding ESPN visibility was a basketball reference (at least in part).
2. The PAC-10 conference as a whole is one of the two major conferences preventing a football playoff system, so this is absolutely relevant.
3. There is no pair of schools with a natural rivalry, close proximity, and academic success that would fit the existing mold to justify expansion to 12 teams. I don't see this happening.
I would rather UCLA and the other big name schools in the PAC-10 become independents than take on two more teams in the otherwise perfect, round-robin Pac-10. Close rivalries, 4 bigs in California, and one regular and state school in the other 3 states, each with their own in-state rivalry?
Tell me how a BYU from lowly Utah or a Colorado will fit in the Pac-10? Remember, this is supposed to be Coastal states, not the Rocky Mountains.
I would choose a playoff before this.
No more teams....everything would get watered down if we add more
It would be cool if FSN would finally get with the times and buy some nice cameras, they have the worst picture
Why is everyone fixated on ESPN? Cuz last year's game against BYU was shown on the freakin' Versus network, and this year's game against BYU (on Sept. 15) will be on Versus again. Like, WTF? A major conference should not be signing deals with cable channels that most of the fan base does not get.
Screw the Pac12 idea and screw the ESPN exposure. What we need is better bowl deals. We have the Rose bowl and the Holiday Bowl. After that, it is all crap. The Sun Bowl, Vegas Bowl, Emerald Bowl and Cereal Bowl are not even worth playing in.
Every year the Pac 10 gets screwed out of getting a second team in a big payout BCS bowl. That is all Hansen's fault.
Besides better bowl affiliations, we need a commissioner with the stones to get something done with the other BCS bowls.
I think the current bowl alignment for the Pac 10 stinks after you get thru the Holiday Bowl. That said, it is a tough chore for any Pac 10 Commish to convince a major non-BCS New Year's Day Bowl to take a Pac 10 team when such bowl can bank on 25,000 fans flocking down from cold Big 10 country or the football-crazed SEC. No way are you getting that many fans from Pac 10 schools to trek out to Florida for New Years Day to catch their team play in the Citrus or Gator Bowl.
Well, well, well ... This topic has brought about some stinging comments and rightly so. I agree with most of what is being said.
No, Pac-12!! Two extra teams would bring nothing to the Pac-10 and would dilute what makes the Pac-10 great: the rivalry games, the round-robin, the television markets, etc.
The Pac-10 needs better bowl tie-ins!! The games are okay, but we need better opponents for the Sun, Vegas, and Emerald Bowls. Also, I don't see why there are not two bowl games played in the Rose Bowl. A December game, not called the Rose Bowl, might attract a great opponent vs. the Pac-10 #2 or #3.
NO college football playoffs!! Television networks want it because they'll get rich. The little schools want it because they think they're better than they are. A playoff would destroy what's left of the bowls and hurt college football in so many ways. It would be a television thing and not an event for fans who attend games because few fans can afford to go to several playoff games.
The most important thing the new commissioner can do is to establish that the PAC 10 is the final authority of the meaning of Hoops rulebook for all PAC 10 games. College basketball is the greatest sport on the planet, and the single worst element of the game is the refereeing. The NCAA should be responsible for this, but since they are way more concerned with getting and counting the money, the conference should take responsibility. Basketball games are called differently game to game, half to half, and end to end. Right now, there are 300-400 referees nationally, all are independent contractors, and all of them decide for themselves what the book means. They are then hired on a game by game basis, are paired with two other officials who have never worked together, and all call the game the way they bloody well want to. Some call them tight, some call them loose, some think that some rules apply to big men, and other rules apply on the perimiter,
Right now, it is up to the teams to learn (by being penalized) what each referee will call every game. That kind of thing shouldn't be a variable. it's highly unfair to the players and coaches. The league should instruct referees how we expect our games to be called (tight, loose, I don't care), and make it clear that we won't reward referees who have other interpretations of the rulebook with new assignments. The NBA supervises it's officials, and NOBODY supervises college officials.
fox gives more coverage with the bruin live show before and after the games with billy mac and james washington..i say get rid of oregon state and bring in texas or colorado