Tag: Jon Wilner

Pac-12 columnist thinks USC doesn’t have a top-25 resume

You can choose to get upset at Jon Wilner, or you can admit that USC has beaten only one good team: Arizona.

USC is 6-1 through seven games. That’s not terrible to be sure, but have the Trojans beaten top teams in the country? Texas has won on the road at Alabama. Oklahoma has beaten Texas. Florida State beat LSU and Clemson.

Duke beat Clemson and has a better resume than USC does right now.

Louisville beat Notre Dame and, with only one loss on its resume, has a better resume than USC does.

Maybe Louisville wouldn’t beat USC if the two teams played, but in terms of actual resumes, the Cardinals have the better collection of results than the Trojans through Week 7.

Realities like this led Jon Wilner of the Wilner Hotline to say that USC doesn’t have a top-25 resume.

You could choose to get mad at Wilner, but the better response is to get mad at Lincoln Riley for not coaching this team well and putting this season in jeopardy.

Reaction to Wilner’s tweet was fascinating. See for yourself:

Jon Wilner analysis shows USC will need to beat UCLA to make New Year’s Six bowl

The reality of the situation is that #USC will need to go 11-1 through 12 games if it wants to make either the Rose Bowl or the Cotton Bowl.

USC’s bowl picture is cloudy but promising. What obviously matters is that the Trojans take care of business, but one detail of their situation offers cause for some concern.

Before the season, the idea that USC could get a New Year’s Six bowl with a 10-2 record seemed very realistic, given that Utah was supposed to be a College Football Playoff contender and Notre Dame was supposed to be a very good team. However, with Utah having no shot at the playoff, and with Notre Dame struggling, USC won’t get a huge boost from either its one-point loss at Utah or from a win over Notre Dame.

The thought process going into 2022 was that a narrow loss at Utah might actually improve USC’s resume, and that a loss to Notre Dame wouldn’t detract from it. Those scenarios aren’t in play.

The Trojans will have to go 11-1 to make a New Year’s Six bowl.

Jon Wilner of The Mercury News explains:

How Jon Wilner broke the USC-UCLA Big Ten story on June 30

Jon Wilner talked to @Paulsen_SMW about the events of June 30, when he broke the USC-UCLA Big Ten bombshell. It’s a detailed look at the complexities of getting a big scoop.

In a few years, Trojans Wire will cover Big Ten athletics on a more regular basis, but for now, USC is still in the Pac-12, so this conference is still our home — or is it our rental property? — for two more years. (Maybe it’s our summer beach house? We digress. You get the idea.)

Out here in Pac-12 country, few journalists are more prominent or pervasive than Jon Wilner of the San Jose Mercury News and the Wilner Hotline. Wilner’s sourcing is second to none among Pac-12 reporters and columnists. He talks to everyone in the conference and gets a read on the whole room, not just certain narrow constituencies. His stories and analyses are must-read material for Pac-12 watchers.

On June 30, he broke the story which changed USC and the Pac-12 forever.

Have you wondered what that day was like for Wilner? Have you thought about the process of breaking that story, going public with it, and then handling the tsunami of calls and media requests for the next 12 to 36 hours after he scooped everyone else?

If you’re interested in how a quality journalist broke a story and then handled the fallout from it, there’s a podcast you should listen to.

The Sports Media Watch podcast had Wilner on its latest show to explain what went into the process of breaking the big USC-UCLA story on June 30. It’s a great look behind the curtain at a journalist in the center of a seismic story he uncovered.

Follow the Sports Media Watch podcast and the companion website for the best in sports television industry analysis:

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REPORT: Two Pac-12 teams are talking about joining the Big Ten as soon as 2024

Huge conference realignment news for the Big Ten, as two Pac-12 schools are in conversations to join the conference:

As first reported by Pac-12 insider Jon Wilner and The Athletic senior writer Nicole Auerbach, the USC Trojans and UCLA Bruins are in conversations to join the Big Ten conference as soon as 2024.

Related: Wisconsin NT among six lesser-known Big Ten players with high draft grades

This would be a groundbreaking move for the Big Ten conference, which has remained unchanged since Rutgers and Maryland joined the Big Ten East in 2014. This is the first major realignment proposed for the conference since the most recent round of power five conference shifts, which include Texas and Oklahoma going from the Big-12 to the SEC in 2025.

If USC and UCLA were to join the Big Ten, they would most likely join the western division for football and could provide a balance in strength between the divisions.

If USC and UCLA leave Pac-12 for Big Ten, what should the Ducks do?

If USC and UCLA leave the Pac-12 for the Big Ten, what do the Ducks do? They have to leave the Pac-12, right?

A massive bit of news was released on Thursday morning, with Pac-12 insider Jon Wilner reporting that the USC Trojans and UCLA Bruins are planning to leave the Pac-12 conference and join the Big Ten conference as early as 2024.

According to Wilner, the move has not been finalized “at the highest levels of power” yet, but regardless of whether or not it has gotten the last stamp of approval, even the thought of it being potentially possible is a massive shift of power in the world of college athletics, and college football in particular.

If it does end up happening, it leaves us with one question…

What will the Oregon Ducks do?

As it is, the Pac-12 is already viewed as a relatively weak conference, and one of the lesser among the Power-5 conferences in college football. At the top of the Pac-12, you have brands like Oregon, USC, UCLA, Utah, and occasionally Washington. You take away two of those programs, and what is left? The answer is an unmistakable runt of the litter.

For that reason, it’s hard to blame USC or UCLA for wanting to leave, as well. If you look at the Big Ten, it is among the best conferences in the nation, second only to maybe the SEC. They have Ohio State, and Michigan, and Michigan State, and Penn State, and countless other schools that can hold their water nationally. The things that conference can offer the Trojans and Bruins don’t even compare to the Pac-12.

So that begs the question…should Oregon try and follow UCLA and USC? If Oregon goes, does Utah follow? Is this the first sign of a true super-conference in college football? The SEC is heading that way with the addition of Texas and Oklahoma in the coming years, and this could be right there with it.

If you’re the Ducks, there’s likely no way you can stay in the Pac-12 if those two teams leave. Oregon already struggles to hold national relevance unless they have a superior season, and even then, they need a conference championship and a 1-loss year or better in order to even sniff the College Football Playoff.

It will be interesting to see how this all plays out. It could mean that the era of super-conferences are on the way, which would likely be great for fans of college football, but potentially fatal to middling teams like Colorado, or Washington State, or Oregon State.

We won’t know anything for sure any time soon, but this is certainly a story to keep your eye on in the coming months.

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Auburn basketball ranked No. 2 in latest AP Top 25 Poll

What a joke.

Fuel to the fire.

Auburn comes in at No. 2 in the latest AP Top 25 Poll after numerous outlets ranked Auburn as the best team in the country (ESPN’s bracketology done by Joe Lunadri, Andy Katz, Jon Rothstein, CBS Sports’ Gary Parrish, and others).

The Tigers received 36 first place votes. Gonzaga finished with 25, and yet the Zags still hold the top spot in the rankings, edging Auburn out 1486 points to 1482. Why, you ask?

There were two AP voters that put Auburn at No. 6 and No. 9: Jon Wilner and Jesse Newell. Might I note that while everyone is entitled to their opinion, Mr. Newell put three teams in front of Auburn that are currently ranked outside of the top 10. He ranked Kentucky at No. 7, Houston at No. 4, and *four loss Villanova* at No. 3. Those teams are ranked 12th, 10th, and 11th in the actual AP Poll. Here is Newell’s entire poll.

I respect that every voter can choose to vote however they wish, but Newell seems to be out of line with almost everyone who voted. His placement of Auburn at 9th cost the Tigers of their first ever No. 1 ranking.

May it also be noted that he has 11-6 Alabama at No. 18.

Here is the official AP Poll in its entirety.

1. Gonzaga, 14-2 (25)
2. Auburn, 16-1 (36)
3. Arizona, 14-1
4. Purdue, 14-2
5. Baylor, 15-2
6. Duke 14-2
7. Kansas, 14-2
8. Wisconsin, 14-2
9. UCLA, 11-2
10. Houston, 15-2
11. Villanova, 13-4
12. Kentucky, 14-3
13. LSU, 15-2
14. Michigan State, 14-3
15. Iowa State, 14-3
16. USC, 14-2
17. Illinois, 13-3
18. Texas Tech, 13-4
19. Ohio State, 11-4
20. Xavier, 13-3
21. Providence, 14-2
22. Loyola Chicago, 13-2
23. Texas, 13-4
24. Tennessee, 11-5
25. UConn, 11-4

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The Jon Wilner plan for a Pac-12 winter-spring football season

Jon Wilner with another really good idea

The Pac-12 Conference, like the Big Ten conference, is thinking about the possibility of spring football, now that the two Power Five leagues have shut down football for the fall.

Jon Wilner — typically the man who outlines alternative plans for the Pac-12 before the league publicly reveals them — has come up with another plan, this one for spring football. It is a must-read.

Remember that Wilner recommended a conference-only game schedule for the Pac-12 in early July. That is exactly what the Pac-12 chose, though Wilner recommended eight games and the Pac-12 came up with 10. Wilner was still ahead of the curve, seeing the big picture with a level of clarity few others do in college sports (and Pac-12) journalism.

When Jon Wilner talks (or writes), Pac-12 administrators and fans should listen.

Wilner’s plan for spring football might not seem workable on the surface, given that asking players to play two seasons in one calendar year is the obvious — and pervasive — roadblock to having spring football in any form and in any conference.

Wilner tries to deal with that roadblock by setting up a nine-game season with a seven-game participation cap for players. The seven-game cap idea comes from the realization that a full season for teams which play in a conference championship game is, in fact, 14 games in length when adding a bowl game. (The two teams which play in the national title game play 15 games.) Therefore, a seven-game cap means a player would play only one and a half seasons in a calendar year.

It’s still asking a LOT to have players play 21 games in a calendar year. To be sure, they still would need hazard pay and full guaranteed health care. However, when addressing the “two full seasons in a year” problem, Wilner does a reasonably good job of offering the Pac-12 a roadmap.

The especially good aspects of Wilner’s plan, however (you should obviously read the whole plan, contained in the link above), are not the number of games or the schedule for a conference title game or the bowls. That is secondary.

The really good thinking shown by Wilner emerges in ways to deal with some obvious limitations of any spring football plan.

Wilner acknowledges — as anyone must when formulating a spring plan — that top NFL prospects will opt out. There will be a big drain on rosters. Therefore, allowing high-school recruits who enrolled early to play this spring season makes all the sense in the world. They get game reps as a kind of trial run before the full fall season. One can imagine allowing a lot of player movements within this one season, while merging that policy with some game restrictions, so that players don’t overextend themselves. From that and other similar ideas, one can see why — and how — Wilner’s plan could potentially come together.

I am still skeptical that spring football will happen, but if you were to start a good exploration of how it could be pulled off, Jon Wilner — as usual — offers a sound foundation.