Buster Sports

The Pac-10 football season unofficially kicks off Thursday when the media, coaches and selected players converge in a hotel near LAX. The first order of business is releasing the annual preseason media poll.

Unless some fan gremlins from Arizona or Washington corrupt the poll, it’s likely to say that USC is the preseason favorite, Oregon and Cal will challenge the Trojans, and Washington and Washington State make up the cellar. The remaining five teams will fill in positions 4 through 8.

But what does it mean, other than vending machine talk until the games actually begin Sept. 3?

Based on the recently history of the poll, you can count on a few things:

• The predicted league champion will probably win the Pac-10; the media poll has correctly predicted the past nine league champions.

• Oregon State and Stanford will be undervalued, by around two positions.

• The picks of Arizona, Washington State and Oregon are generally on the money. Probably UCLA, too.

• Washington and Arizona State are often overvalued, by an average of one position.

• Be wary of California, the most overrated team of the past five years.

Here’s a look at the preseason media poll during the past 10 years. It includes the average predicted and actual finish for each team, and the difference between the two. The actual is based on a team’s finish in the Pac-10 standings. If a team finished in a two-way tie for say, first – as USC and Arizona State did in 2007 – then each team gets credit for a 1.5 finish. In a three-way tie, say for fifth place, a team gets credit for a sixth-place finish, since it is the average of a 5-6-7 finish.

At first glance, I thought this analysis was a bit skewed, particularly in the case of USC, UCLA and California. The Trojans are a far different program today than they were 10 years ago, while UCLA was hot a decade ago, but have cooled considerably during the past five years. California was in the crapper at the start of the decade, but picked it up once Jeff Tedford took over the Bears in 2002.

Which is why I thought it was appropriate to also look at the past five years, to get a more current picture.

 

Both the 5 and 10-year trends say Oregon State and Stanford get the shaft by the media poll. In the Beavers’ case, only twice has the media poll thought more than it should have of Oregon State, in 2001 and 2003. Most of the time, it misses in the other direction, often by several places. Missing on Stanford is a little more forgivable. The Cardinal have been awful for most of this decade, and the media has to pick someone to finish last. All Stanford has to do to improve its predicted finish is win a few Pac-10 games. It’s hardly a victory when the media says Stanford is going to finish ninth, and the Cardinal actually finishes seventh. Both stink.

As for overrating teams, California is right up there, if you look at the five-year analysis. Since 2004, the media has picked the Bears to finish second each year except in 2008. Instead, Cal has played more like a fourth-place team during the past five years. In all likelihood, the Bears figure to get picked second behind USC in the 2009 media poll.

Nick Daschel covers the Pacific-10 Conference for Buster Sports, and can be reached at ndaschel@bustersports.com

Feature, Football, Headline, Pac-10