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Pac-10 football decade standings aren’t kind to Arizona

by on Dec. 10, 2009, under Sports

The Pac-10 games are wrapped up for the decade and not even a late surge could save Arizona from the bottom of the 10-year standings. Thanks, John Mackovic.

Arizona’s 4-20 conference record under Mackovic from 2001-03 was the second-worst three-year mark for any team in the Pac-10. Only Washington State in the past three years (4-23 playing a nine-game league schedule) was worse.

What Mackovic razed, Mike Stoops has raised. Perhaps the 2010s will be better for Arizona.

The chart below is the breakdown of how the Pac-10 fared this decade, with only this season’s bowl games to be played.

Pac-10 All-Decade standings

Team Conf. W-L Overall W-L Bowls BCS NFL picks 1st-round
USC 64-20 101-25 9 7 61 15
Oregon 57-27 87-37 9 2 34 3
Oregon State 51-33 80-44 8 1 28 2
Cal 43-41 71-52 7 0 35 7
UCLA 41-43 66-57 7 0 25 3
Arizona State 37-47 65-58 6 0 32 5
Washington State 33-51 57-63 3 1 17 1
Stanford 33-51 47-68 2 0 30 1
Washington 31-53 49-71 3 1 19 2
Arizona 30-54 47-67 2 0 21 2

DECADE NOTES
Best travel pair: Not even USC could lift Los Angeles to this title. The Oregon-Oregon State pairing was the decade’s best with a combined 108 conference victories. The Los Angeles schools were next with 105.

Wither the Washingtons? The Washington schools had a combined 42 league victories in the first four years of the decade, then had a measly 22 in the next six seasons. That’s 1.8 conference wins per team for six long seasons. The last winning league record for a Washington school was WSU’s 6-2 mark in 2003.

Tough to stay on top: Only two of the seven teams that had winning conference records in the 1990s followed up with winning Pac-10 marks this decade — USC and Oregon.

TEAM NOTES
Arizona: The Wildcats are 14-8 in conference games dating to late in the 2007 season. Before that, Arizona was a miserable 16-48 in league games this decade.

Arizona State: Finished with a winning conference record just three times, and went only 2-18 in conference games in the state of California.

Cal: Conference record looks like better when starting with the Jeff Tedford era in 2002: 41-27.

Oregon: The Ducks were superb in the first two years of the decade and in the final two years, posting a 29-5 conference record in those four seasons. In the middle, Oregon was fairly average.

Oregon State: It seems almost impossible to believe that this is the same program that went 13-65-1 during the 1990s. From one decade to the next, the Beavers went from having a 17.1 winning percentage to a 60.7 winning percentage.

Stanford: In a six-season span (2002-2007), the Cardinal won only 13 conference games.

UCLA: The Bruins have lost at least four conference games in every season except 2005, when they were 6-2. UCLA can still add to its bowl total as it will be invited to the EagleBank Bowl if Navy beats Army on Saturday, thereby eliminating the Black Knights from bowl eligibility.

USC: The Trojan Decade ended with a thud, but the streak of seven consecutive league titles and seven consecutive seasons with double-digit victories was utter dominance. Those 15 first-round picks are more than twice any other Pac-10 team.

Washington: The far-and-away Pac-10 King of the 1990s (58-21-1) would have tied for last this decade if it hadn’t defeated Cal on the last weekend of the regular season.

Washington State: From 2001 to 2003, no team had more than the Cougars’ 19 conference victories (USC did, too). Those memories will have to keep Wazzu warm; in the seven other seasons, WSU managed a mere 14 league wins.

If you see any corrections, send them to me at anthonygimino (at) gmail.com.

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  • Geognostic

    Better check on that Mackovic record – I don’t think he coached 24 conference games.

    • Anthony Gimino

      I know those conference games in 2003 don’t go on his record because he was fired before then, but he most definitely gets credit for the entire mess. Those three seasons are all his “era.”

      • Carolyn Classen

        Anthony, I was (unfortunately) at that UA Welcoming Reception for this coach, when he promised to take the team to the Rose Bowl.  That’s funny now considering how disliked he was by the players, and had to be fired.

  • carbon64

    “Better check on that Mackovic record – I don’t think he coached 24 conference games.”

    How dare you mention the name of he who should not be mentioned.

  • Jay

    “The Ducks were superb in the first two years of the decade and in the final two years, posting a 29-5 conference record in those four seasons. In the middle, Oregon was fairly average.”

    Doing the math, if you take away Oregon’s 29-5 from those 4 seasons, you are left with a 32-22 record.  “Fairly average” is fairly accurate, but its worth noting that 27-22 would still be  the 3rd best conference winning percentage this decade, only trailing USC and Oregon State. Oregon has been great those 4 seasons, but still better than most the rest of the time.

    • Anthony Gimino

      Oregon was 28-22 in the conference through the middle six years, including a 7-1 mark in 2005. So the Ducks were a cumulative .500 for the other five years. Average. I’m not knocking the Ducks. There are eight other programs that wished it could have Oregon’s decade … and the beginning and the end of the decade were spectacular.

  • Jay

    I know you weren’t knocking Oregon. In fact, I wasn’t even arguing that they didn’t have an average record those other years. My point was that even the average record was only beaten, cumulatively, by 2 other Pac-10 schools. 
     

    • Anthony Gimino

      Fair enough. What is (somewhat) interesting is that seven Pac-10 teams had winning conference records in the 1990s — a result of everybody beating Oregon State and then just needing, essentially, to go .500 against everybody else. That flipped around this decade. USC beat almost everybody, so the other teams had to really make hay against the rest of the league to get past .500.

  • Jay

    Also somewhat interesting is that, based on NFL talent, Stanford looks to be the program that most underacheived this decade.

    • Mark B. Evans

      And UCLA the team that most overachieved.

      • Anthony Gimino

        Stanford rarely lacks elite talent, able to target the players who best combine athletics and academics. Stanford’s problem is that there aren’t enough of those guys to go around. The Cardinal, usually, hasn’t had enough of the second-tier recruits needed to capably fill multiple holes on the depth chart (especially when it comes to overall team speed).

      • KPR

        UCLA most overachieving team??  Based upon what?
        Consider:  Oregon State had a grand total of 3 more players drafted in that 10 year stretch.  And 1 fewer first rounder.  That’s a wash, or darn near a wash, when comparing talent.  BUT, OSU earned 10 more conference victories and 14 more total victories.  And played a Fiesta Bowl game (in a season where they were as good as any team in the nation).
        Now think of this.  You’re a good high school player being recruited by both OSU and UCLA.  Now, you can choose sun, chicks, beach and Hollywood.  OR you can choose…. Corvallis, 1 hour drive to Portland, same distance as UCLA to skiing, and … what?  The average kid is going to UCLA, all things being equal.
        But… OSU has had the benefit of phenomenal coaching over this 10 year stretch.  Not only was the program able to overcome a tradition of failure (by the mid-eighties there was serious talk of taking OSU OUT of the Pac10 because, after decades of failure, many people thought there was No Way the Beavs could EVER compete with the ‘big boys’.  Only a tradition of winning in basketball (thanks, Ralph Miller) kept the threatened move at bay.
        But Riley, Erickson, and Riley part 2 were able to get into OSU athletes that other Pac 10 teams did not covet.  Then they coached those players up.  And even today it’s still that way.  Seldom does a freshman or sophomore play at OSU (stunning exceptions like the Rogers Brothers aside) because they don’t yet have the skills to compete.  But by the time they are upperclassmen, they are ready to share the field with any team.
        The OSU Beavers are a shining light for Washington State.  Today there are whispers that maybe it is time to replace WSU with Boise St or Utah.  Yet no matter how dark it gets for the Cougs, there is always hope.  It just takes getting the right coach in place, the right assistants in place, and an administration that values winning.
        No Pac 10 team has done more with less than Oregon State.  And with no sniffing around by the NCAA rules committee, either.

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  • Anthony Gimino

    Marc Dellins from UCLA calls to correct a couple of UCLA numbers. The Bruins have had 25 draft picks and three first-rounders this decade. Thanks to Marc for setting the record straight.

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  • GetRidOfBCS

    Thanks for the numbers.  The seven game difference between SC and Oregon is surprisingly small, considering the difference in national reputation and the whole PAC 1 knock.  I think if you were to go back a few more years, from Bellotti’s tenure forward, Oregon might actually have more conference wins.

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