In virtually even middle of the Pac-10, expect Cats to finish sixth
ANTHONY GIMINO
Tucson Citizen
Spring ball is a wrap, and the next big college football event is the arrival of the preseason magazines. You'll just have to wait for some of them, but I can give you a sneak peek at selected rankings for Lindy's Football Annuals. As senior editor at Lindy's, I'm mostly to blame for all the ratings - from the team rankings, to player rankings to position rankings. Sure, it's a collaborative effort, with input from every corner of the country (and all the wonderful, small college towns in between), but I do have a very presidential-like veto power. I had to use that to make a tweak to Lindy's Pac-10 rankings. Parts of the Pac-10 are easy to pick. USC is first (brilliant!). Stanford is last.
Cal, on the basis of a great offense and great coaching, is second. UCLA, with 10 starters returning from a defense that smothered USC last season, is third.
That one comes with a qualifier: The Bruins have the talent and experience to be second, but if it's a close call between Cal coach Jeff Tedford and UCLA coach Karl Dorrell, the benefit of the doubt goes to the Bears. Now, if you could combine Cal's offense with UCLA's defense, you might really have something. Actually, you'd have USC.
Anyway, here comes the hard part. Predicting the teams through the middle of the Pac-10 requires four pieces of paper and a hat. Pick the names in any order, and you'd have about as much chance of being right as if you had every playbook, every game tape and Mel Kiper Jr. as your assistant. It's that close.
This is how the predictions came to me from our Pac-10 correspondent:
4. Arizona State
5. Oregon State
6. Oregon
7. Arizona
The Sun Devils expect to be up there because of the coaching change to Dennis Erickson. No matter what you think of him personally, the man can coach. And quarterback Rudy Carpenter is healthy. The Beavers finished third last season and return 18 starters, so they have a case to be higher than fifth. But the departure of quarterback Matt Moore creates some uncertainty at the most important position, and games against USC and Oregon are on the road this season. It is at No. 6 where I used executive privilege. I bumped Arizona to sixth and, although I hated to do it, moved the Ducks to seventh. Whichever team is picked seventh in the Pac-10 doesn't really deserve to be that low. Maybe a tie would be appropriate - after all, there was a four-way tie for fifth place last season - but I'm not into predicting ties in a preseason magazine. So, somebody has to be seventh.
I'm a sucker for defense (Arizona's is better), plus the Wildcats romped in Eugene last season. That right there seemed to be a decent tiebreaker over Oregon. It doesn't help that both teams have an air of mystery, making them harder to peg. Arizona has the most radically new offense in the Pac-10, banking on Sonny Dykes' imported pass-happy spread offense from Texas Tech. Oregon added a spread offense guru as well, hiring Chip Kelly from Division I-AA New Hampshire. The Ducks put in some no-huddle schemes in the spring and vow to get talented running back Jonathan Stewart many more touches per game. Stewart and running back Jeremiah Johnson figure to play at the same time, a combination that is rife with possibilities. That's what these middle teams are all about: possibilities. Figure that over a nine-game conference season, each Pac-10 team will be involved in more than 1,300 plays. The difference in these tough-to-pick positions could be just a few plays here and there . . . or about 0.23 percent. But if you think the Pac-10 is hard to predict, try the ACC. For that, though, you're going to have to buy a magazine.
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