2008 Pac 10 Football Year in Review

Little Sunflower
Originally uploaded by pete4ducks.

Well 2008 was in many ways like most of this decade in that USC was the champion of the league, Cal, OSU and Oregon all finished in the top half of the conference while Stanford, WSU and UW failed to make it to bowl eligibility. Arizona is headed to their first bowl in quite some time while ASU is out of the bowl season for the first time since 2003. UCLA, though they’ve been a fairly disappointing team this decade actually had not missed a bowl since 2001 and even that year they went 7-4. Karl Dorrell obviously left the cupboard bare and UCLA was hamstrung by the injuries to Olson and Cowan before the season started. Tis the season for awards and recognition.

Pac 10 Offensive Player of the Year: Jaquizz Rodgers, the tiny freshman running back carried the Beavers on his back to 7 wins before being hurt early against Arizona. Honorable mention Jahvid Best, Mark Sanchez, Willie Tuitama.
Pac 10 Defensive Player of the Year: The entire USC defense, I can't signal out just one guy on what was perhaps the best defense we've seen in the modern college game. Honorable mention to Nick Reed of Oregon and Zack Follet of Cal.
Pac 10 Freshman of the Year: Jaquizz Rodgers. Not even close on this one.
Pac 10 Coach of the Year: Mike Bellotti, in 2008 he got 9 wins out of a team that started his 5th string QB most of the season and was a few plays from being 11-1. Honorable mention to Mike Riley who managed to take a team that many thought would not be bowl eligible and come within one game of the Rose Bowl and 7 straight conference wins and Pete Carroll who guided the nation’s best scoring defense since Auburn in 1988.
Surprise Team of the Year: Oregon State looked to be in a rebuilding mode knocked off the #1 team in the country and won 7 in a row in league play.
Disappointment of the Year: ASU’s season was KO’ed by the UNLV loss. Though they did face about the hardest six game run I’ve seen in Pac 10 history ASU had the talent to be a bowl team. Dishonorable mention to Washington, who was sunk before the year started due to schedule difficulty but still had no excuse finishing 0-12.
Trend of 2008 that I hope doesn’t occur in 2009: A 1-6 regular season record against Mountain West teams and having the two worst teams perhaps in the history of the BCS era in UW and WSU.
Trend of 2008 that I hope occurs in 2009: New blood in bowl games. Arizona finally returned to bowl competition after a long drought, Stanford should be able to repeat the feat in 2009.
Coach with the hottest seat in 2009: Again it is likely Mike Stoops who will lose Senior QB Willie Tuitama though did get Arizona to the Vegas Bowl. Dennis Erickson needs a comeback year or people will start to wonder if he still has it in him anymore after so many years and stops.