Tag: Pac-12 championship

How should we assess Dan Lanning and the Ducks so far on eve of Pac-12 title game?

A look at Dan Lanning and how he has molded the Oregon Ducks football team on the eve of the Pac-12 Championship Game.

The Oregon Ducks are a day away from taking on the Washington Huskies in the 2023 Pac-12 Championship game, which will be the last game ever played in the Pac-12 Conference.

In general, the season has been a massive success, and if not for a slip-up on the road against the Huskies earlier in the year, Oregon would likely be viewed as one of the top-ranked teams in the nation right now. So how should we assess how Dan Lanning has molded this group over the past couple of seasons and gotten them into this position?

To answer that question, we talked with Warren Williamson of Oregon Duck Football News to get a deeper look into the team.

8 major questions for Oregon Ducks to answer in Pac-12 title game vs. Washington

Some of the biggest questions that Dan Lanning and the Oregon Ducks need to answer this Friday in the Pac-12 Championship Game.

The entire back-half of the season has seemingly been leading up to this for the Oregon Ducks and Washington Huskies. Ever since that Week 7 thriller in early October gave us one of the best games of the year — a 36-33 Washington win in Seattle — there was hope for most that these two teams would meet again in the Pac-12 Championship Game in Las Vegas.

That meeting has been set, and the eyes of the college football world will descend on Allegiant Stadium for a matchup that will send one team to the College Football Playoff, and potentially crown a Heisman Trophy winner as well.

With a loss to Washington the last time these two played, what needs to change for Oregon this time around? What do they need to do differently, and what questions do they need to answer on Friday night?

We’ve got some that have bubbled to the surface. Here are our biggest questions for Friday and the ensuing Saturday games as well:

Pac-12 championship odds change according to ESPN FPI

USC is still favored to win the Pac-12 title, per ESPN. However, the Oregon Ducks are quickly making up ground.

One of the best tools that college football fans have at their disposal each and every season is the ESPN Football Power Index. For those unfamiliar with ESPN’s FPI, it is a ranking that “relies on past performance, on offense and defense, returning and transfer production and past recruiting data for players on the roster to form a rating.”

Virtually, it’s ESPN’s way of declaring the top teams in the nation, looking at their roster, their schedule, their percent chance to win each game, and where that ultimately lands them after the season comes to an end.

Following the end of the spring football season across the nation, ESPN’s FPI gave a percent chance for each team in the Pac-12 conference to become bowl eligible, and ultimately win the conference. However, in the fast few months with the addition of several new transfers for different teams, those odds have changed.

Fans of the Oregon Ducks should be happy. Take a look at where ESPN now projects each Pac-12 team will finish up in 2023.

USC picked to win Pac-12 football championship in 2023 preseason media poll

No one is surprised #USC is the preseason #Pac12 favorite, but how close was this vote? Let’s go inside the numbers.

This comes as no shock at all: The USC Trojans are the preseason pick to win the Pac-12 football championship. The Pac-12 preseason media poll was released one day before Pac-12 media day in Las Vegas. USC is the leader of the pack.

It’s true that USC’s defense, particularly its defensive line, is being met with a lot of doubts before the start of the season. Not one USC defensive lineman was named to the preseason All-Pac-12 first or second team.

There are 22 slots for All-Pac-12 defense (if you confine the discussion to the first and second teams). USC got just three of those 22 slots, one on the first team and two on the second team. Safety Calen Bullock is the first-teamer, while linebackers Mason Cobb and Eric Gentry are the second-teamers.

None of this includes the bigger discussions about USC’s defensive depth and the quality of coaching Alex Grinch will need to provide.

Yet, in spite of all the questions USC faces on defense, the Trojans were picked to finish first in the Pac-12 in the regular season.

Let’s look at the full order of finish in the 2023 Pac-12 football preseason media poll, including the point totals for each team:

Stanford’s Rose Zhang captures 10th title of college career at Pac-12 Championship in record-setting fashion

Rose Zhang is the third Stanford golfer to win a conference title in program history. 

It has been a record-setting Wednesday for Stanford sophomore Rose Zhang.

The top-ranked amateur in the world set the record for most weeks spent as the No. 1 golfer in the World Amateur Golf Ranking at 136 weeks. By day’s end, she added two more accolades to her repertoire.

Zhang won the Pac-12 Championship at Papago Golf Course in Phoenix, shooting 12-under 204 to tie the lowest score in championship history. She previously set the low 36-hole score at 9 under.

She’s the third Stanford golfer to win a conference title in program history. Zhang won by seven shots over Arizona State’s Beth Coulter.

The win also pushes Zhang’s college win total to 10, which breaks a tie with Andrea Lee for most by a female golfer in Stanford history. Zhang has won six times in eight starts this season, her other finishes being a fifth and T-12.

Tiger Woods, Maverick McNealy and Patrick Rodgers all won 11 times for the Cardinal.

Earlier this month, Zhang won the biggest title of her career thus far, capturing the Augusta National Women’s Amateur.

As a team, Stanford finished third at 7 under, one shot behind Oregon and nine behind champion USC. Arizona was fourth at 1 over and host Arizona State was fifth at 7 over. It’s USC’s ninth conference title.

Zhang is the defending NCAA individual champion, and Stanford is the defending team champ. Heading into regionals, the Cardinal remain one of the favorites to win at Grayhawk next month.

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Ducks draw brutal path to Pac-12 Championship as No. 9 seed

As the No. 9 seed, Oregon has a brutal path to the Pac-12 title game that would feature matchups with three ranked teams.

A week ago, we were looking at the Oregon Ducks’ women’s basketball team in a negative light. They were in the midst of a seven-game losing streak, and couldn’t seem to get out of their own way. It appear that for this team that once ranked inside the top 25, the only way into the NCAA Tournament was with a Pac-12 tournament championship.

Fortunately, the Ducks then turned around and got a massive win over the No. 14 Arizona Wildcats, and a blowout win over Arizona State on Saturday absolutely helped their case at an at-large bid as well.

It appears that may be crucial in the end. With the regular season coming to an end on Saturday, the seeding and schedule for the Pac-12 Tournament was released. The Ducks got a No. 9 seed, and their path to the championship is absolutely brutal. Let’s go through the teams that they would have to play on their way to the championship.

For this exercise, we are going to advance the Ducks through each round, and have them face the higher-ranked opponent in each matchup. 

Alex Grinch gets roasted by fans and analysts after USC allows 47 to Utah — the heat is on for 2023

Alex Grinch knows he signed up for this — not the level of performance, but knowing that if standards weren’t met, he would face very close scrutiny at #USC.

Alex Grinch has been with Lincoln Riley for each of the past four seasons — three at Oklahoma, this one at USC. None of those four seasons have produced a national championship or even an appearance in the College Football Playoff National Championship Game. This is what Riley and Grinch aspire to. They haven’t gotten over the hump yet.

While it’s true that this season was unlikely to deliver USC — and its coaches — a national title game appearance, it remains that getting overpowered and outworked in a conference championship game, with a playoff spot hanging in the balance, will sting for Alex Grinch.

What stings even more is that the same opponent gave Grinch and USC the same problems. Dalton Kincaid, Cam Rising, and the Utah offensive line dominated USC’s defense twice. The Trojans couldn’t tackle the Utes twice. The Men of Troy lost to the Utes twice.

It is understandable that USC fared poorly against Utah in Year 1 under the new coaching staff. The Trojans didn’t have the dudes they needed, and people in and around the program were aware of that.

However: The end product was still very bad against a chief Pac-12 contender. That won’t simply slide away and become ignored. It has to be dealt with.

People are upset, and they should be. It’s not as though Grinch — despite knowing he didn’t have a fully-stocked cupboard — should get a free pass. He should be cut some slack, but he should still be scrutinized. He’ll also be the first one to admit this.

Let’s look at that scrutiny from fans and analysts after the 47-24 loss to Utah.

Alex Grinch’s reputation as a defensive coordinator didn’t change in 2022, and that’s the problem

What is the most important central truth to convey about Alex Grinch at #USC (and frankly throughout his whole career, including Oklahoma)? We answer that question.

You are reading this story, which means you have just seen the title for the story: “Alex Grinch’s reputation as a defensive coordinator didn’t change in 2022.”

This leads us into an obvious, central question: Just what exactly was Alex Grinch’s reputation as a defensive coordinator?

Answering that question requires digging into his past, especially at Oklahoma, where he spent three full seasons alongside Lincoln Riley and produced seasons which were not that different from this one at USC.

You have to understand Alex Grinch’s history in order to understand his 2022 season. The real question is whether all of this means he deserves to coach this defense in 2023.

Let’s dive into this complicated conversation:

USC report card: handing out grades after Trojans get smoked by Utah in Pac-12 Championship Game

Which grade will interest you the most as a #USC fan or observer after this game? Probably our grade for Alex Grinch. Get that and all other grades here:

When USC lost to Utah the first time back on October 15, the Trojans played well enough to win but were brutally unlucky and were the recipients of the very best game Cam Rising and Dalton Kincaid could possibly play. Not getting a fair shake on two separate huge roughing-the-passer calls made that game feel like a contest which was taken away or, at the very least, altered by forces USC couldn’t entirely control.

This game on Friday night in Las Vegas was different.

Utah smoked USC. The Utes were better. They were tougher. They were deeper. They were stronger. They exposed the Trojans at their weakest points and elicited the conversations we expected to have about this flawed USC team in 2022. It came at the worst possible time, but it happened.

Our grades for the Trojans will reflect that, and they will lead into some necessary — and inconvenient — conversations about this program heading into 2023:

Pac-12 Championship Game images: scenes from a night of pain for USC

The images were sharp, dramatic and colorful, but they weren’t part of a victory. Good television, bad result for #USC.

The USC Trojans gave it everything they got. Heisman Trophy candidate and USC QB Caleb Williams did absolutely everything possible on one leg, but the Utah Utes ended up winning the Pac-12 title, 47-24, in Las Vegas on Friday night.

This was not the outcome everybody was expecting, and Caleb Williams’ injury changed the outcome of the game and the season for the Trojans.

It was an unfortunate night in Sin City for the Trojans and their fans, but the 11-2 team will still be headed for a New Year’s Six Bowl game in a successful first season with head coach Lincoln Riley.

It will be tough to digest, but here are some of the best photos from the Pac-12 title game.