Pac-12 football careens
toward crisis mode: It’s not the bowl record, it’s everything
By JON WILNER
San Jose Mercury News 12/31/2017
Had planned to spend the weekend piecing together a year-in-review
piece, but we’re changing course to account for what sure feels like the early
stage of a crisis situation for the conference’s football product.
I don’t use that description lightly, not in the slightest.
But after a bad regular season on the field, a worse regular
season off the field (Kirk Herbstreit! cupcakes! truck racing!) and an
unprecedented postseason meltdown — plus several natural headwinds — it’s fair
to say the football finger should be inching toward the panic button.
Let’s start with an acknowledgment that bowl results are something
of a moving target. Placing full weight and judgement on a single result, or
series of results, is often a misguided approach.
Circumstances cannot be discounted, and in the Pac-12’s case in
2017, those circumstances included two teams playing without their starting
quarterbacks and three teams enduring coaching changes that disrupted
preparation.
But I’d argue that in this case, this year, the sweep of the
results should be deeply concerning to the conference:
The Pac-12 went 1-8, the worst postseason record ever
produced by a conference.
The. Worst. Ever.
And it wasn’t just the winning percentage of 11.1 that leaves a
rotten smell and horrific sight.
It was the way the conference lost — so many lopsided defeats,
such bad defense — and the teams it lost to.
In particular, there were three head-to-head duels matching top
teams from the Pac-12 against top teams from the Big Ten:
Ohio State 24, USC 7
Penn State 35, Washington 28
Michigan State 42, Washington State 17
Penn State 35, Washington 28
Michigan State 42, Washington State 17
Then add Arizona’s loss to Purdue, and the Pac-12 was 0-4 against
its chief rival within the Power Five.
The bowl results substantiate, if not bolster the narrative that
the Pac-12 was a second-rate conference during the regular season — that it
didn’t deserve to sniff the playoffs.
There were issues off the field, too, with the Washington-ESPN
hubbub and the scheduling woes (Saturday road games followed by Friday road
games) and the out-of-nowhere shot at the Pac-12 Networks by ESPN’s Chris
Fowler and the incomprehensible snubbing of Stanford-Washington by FS1 because
of a truck race gone long.
Ask yourself: Is any other conference encountering issues like
those mentioned above?
Big Ten games aren’t getting bumped by a truck race. ACC coaches
aren’t getting ripped by Kirk Herbstreit. Fowler isn’t taking shots at the SEC
Network.
That bleak situation got worse in the postseason, courtesy of the
worst across-the-board showing by a single conference in the sport’s history.
And let’s not forget: The Pac-12 has missed the playoff two of the
past three years and hasn’t won a playoff game since Oregon in 2014.
(Oh, and this: Of the dozens of bowl games played thus far, only
one has been defined by bad officiating: the Music City. And guess which
conference provided the officiating. The Pac-12 crew embarrassed itself and the
conference.)
Panic time? Crisis situation?
At the very least, Pac-12 football — the entirety of the brand,
not just an individual team or two — is trending in the wrong direction.
This much we know:
The conference cannot buy its way out of the downward spiral,
because peer schools in the Big Ten and SEC are collecting tens of millions of
dollars more per year in media rights revenue, enabling them to spend more for
head coaches, assistant coaches, support staffs, recruiting, facilities, etc.
Another thought:
The conference shouldn’t make another public utterance of a
successful business venture in China until it puts a team in the playoff.
Yes, commissioner Larry Scott is perfectly capable of
multitasking, of deepening the conference’s relationship with Alibaba and
Pacific Rim entities while working on football matters.
But the situation is entirely about perception at this point, and
the perception outside the walls of Pac-12 power is that the overseas endeavors
are just as important as football to those inside the walls of Pac-12 power.
Nor is this the time for conference to convene a blue-ribbon panel
to study the challenges facing Pac-12 football and then report its findings to
Scott and his senior staff for contemplation.
What the conference needs … and yes, I’m doubling down here … is
to act decisively and swiftly and establish a competition committee:
It needs a governing body for the sport that has full authority to
act in the best interest of the Pac-12 football brand (within the parameters of
established NCAA rules, of course).
It’s so clear that the football product needs help.
Again: The missteps encountered by the Pac-12 don’t happen to any other conference.
(Also unique to the Pac-12: chancellors and presidents publicly questioning revenue
models and conference spending.)
The competition committee isn’t about the bowl meltdown or missing
the playoff for the second time in three years.
It’s about the bowl meltdown and missing the
playoff for the second time in three years and …
*** The conference’s wholly-owned TV network either not grasping the significance
of the early signing window or grasping but not caring enough
about it to produce a show(s) that could be used as a marketing tool for the
football brand …
*** A regular-season schedule that created student-welfare issues
and placed teams at competitive disadvantages (Saturday road/Friday road) in
ways that don’t exist in other leagues ..
*** High-profile employees for one of your business partners
(Herbstreit, Fowler) showing a decided lack of respect in their public bashing
of your coaches and product …
*** Your other business partner (Fox) favoring truck races over
Washington-Stanford …
*** The fact that the conference is already facing natural
challenges with the time zones and a significant lack of exposure.
(The Pac-12 Networks, for all intents and purposes, are a
regional, not national, media company.)
Perhaps the single most important issue facing Pac-12 football,
however, is one of identity:
What should it strive to be?
Scott’s vision for a healthy football product — “long-term,” he
said recently, “you want depth and competitive teams” — fits well with the
conference’s long-held ethos of parity and collective good. But it’s at odds
with the reality of the top-heavy postseason structure that now dominates the
sport.
If you’re not in the playoff, you’re a second-class citizen
generating less revenue than your competitors. And the model for reaching the
playoff is to field one or two elite teams, with a swath of mediocrity
underneath.
The conference must decide, with the competition committee leading
the charge, if striving for parity is truly the proper tact, or if a playoff
berth should be the annual end game.
(Having both is neither reasonable nor sustainable.)
And if reaching the playoff and winning a championship is the goal
— it sure seems to be for everyone else — then the committee should determine
the path forward.
(A best-practices study of the ACC, Big Ten and SEC would be a
potential starting point.)
Bottom line:
The concern (panic?) the conference and campuses should be feeling
about the quality of the football brand isn’t rooted in a single issue or
result.
It’s not about 1-8. It’s about 1-8 and
everything else:
The entire canvass, on the field and off, regular season and
postseason, management and operations, identity and end game.
Pac-12 football needs help in order to not just survive but thrive
(long term) in an increasingly treacherous, challenging college football
landscape.
The first step to solving the problem is recognizing it exists.
*** Send suggestions, comments and tips (confidentiality
guaranteed) to pac12hotline@bayareanewsgroup.com
*** Follow me on Twitter: @WilnerHotline
*** Pac-12 Hotline is not endorsed or sponsored by the Pac-12
Conference, and the views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the views
of the Conference.
