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PAC-10 or SEC? We'll see this fall

One of the hottest debates raging throughout college football last season was whether or not the PAC-10 rivaled the SEC as the nation’s best conference.

While the SEC is almost exclusively regarded in sports circles as the country’s best, the PAC-10 made things interesting with their newfound depth. Cal, Oregon, and Arizona State were all at one point ranked in the top 10 of the AP Top 25 poll, as was conference powerhouse USC, which started off the season at number one.

It was beginning to look like the league was more than just a one-team conference, but that look was more like a glance. Slowly but surely, the three teams started to stumble and the debate started to crumble.

Cal lost six of their last seven regular season games. That one win was important for them though — it kept them bowl-eligible. They ended up pulling out a 42-36 squeaker over Air Force in the Armed Forces Bowl.

Oregon superstar quarterback Dennis Dixon injured his knee in the fourth quarter of a game against Arizona State University, before reinjuring it in his next game against Arizona. The second time ended his season. Without their leader, the team went on to lose against Arizona and in its next two PAC-10 games against UCLA and Oregon State.

Arizona State went on to lose regular season games to both Oregon and USC, before being embarrassed in a 52-34 Holiday Bowl loss to Texas. While the Sun Devils did get a share of the PAC-10 title with their 7-2 conference record, not beating any of these three opponents showed that they weren’t ready to hang with the big boys of college football.

USC matched Arizona State’s PAC-10 record en route to their sixth straight PAC-10 title. SEC fans couldn’t stop smiling as the PAC-10’s reputation went back to what it had been before the season started: that it was a one-team conference.

The Big Ten is in danger of rivaling the PAC-10 for that reputation.

Ohio State has won the last three Big Ten titles outright, and like USC in the PAC-10, there really isn’t a program in the conference that is consistently challenging them (I can’t wait to see them play each other on Sept. 13).

I haven’t seen or heard one person predict against Ohio State winning the Big Ten this year, and I can’t help but agree.

They clearly have the Big Ten’s best coach (Jim Tressel), defensive player and linebacker (James Laurinaitis), cornerback (Malcolm Jenkins), offensive lineman and tackle (Alex Boone), linebackers, secondary, and group of running backs, (which is what it takes these days. The one-back system is going the route of the dinosaur).

And those are just the clear cut arguments.

They return 20 of 22 starters on a team that went undefeated through Big Ten and regular season play before choking in the title game against LSU.

Do you think maybe that has something to do with the quality of their regular season opponents?

I sure do, and it doesn’t look like there will be a challenger to their Big Ten throne this season.

Wisconsin has been a consistent, solid program, but I don’t see them having the talent to truly challenge the Scarlet and Grey.

Penn State is always unpredictable, and seemingly at the point of anarchy.
Michigan will be having at least one down year as Rich Rodriguez implements his spread-option offense.

Purdue and Iowa are also programs on the decline.

Michigan State, Illinois and Indiana are programs on the rise, but they are still a long way from being able to consistently challenge Ohio State for the top spot.

After last year’s season, Minnesota has no choice but to be a program on the rise, and Northwestern is praying, like their life depends on it, that they will excel as well.

Yes, it seems a foregone conclusion that Ohio State will win another Big Ten title, that Wisconsin, Penn State, Michigan, Illinois and MSU are just duking it out for second place, but with sports, you never know.

It may take years for one of these teams to challenge “The” Ohio State University as the conference’s premiere program, but if a team gets the right breaks … they can win it this season.

I can only hope that MSU is that team, and wait for Oct. 18.