Pac-10 Preview, 2003

How I rank the teams in the Pac-10 conference

By: Malamute, 16 May 2003

 

We've spruced up some old tables left over from 2K+2  with some springtime cleaning. Using my new unproven, untried formula, I've ranked all teams in the Pac-10 conference from top to bottom. Call it a tabularized skinny of how the teams ought to stand after the hurly-burly is done. Also included is the schedule for conference members in 2003.

 

To pick a champion, I assigned each team a point value ranging from -4 to 13, over five different categories of measure:

Table 1 shows the ranking for each team in the Pac-10. Based on the data in that table, I've picked the UW to win the conference championship. Tables 2 through 6 show how the point totals were derived for each of the five categories listed in Table 1. The conference schedule is shown by Table 7 below.

 

The next article in this series will discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each team in the Pac-10.

 

Table 1. My fearless forecast for 2003 is based on the team's win percentage in the Pac-10 over the last 6 years, the number of tough road games in the Pac-10, the head coach's win percentage in the Pac-10, the quality of the returning starters and the experience and the leadership qualities of the starting QB.  See Tables 2 through 7 for supporting data.

 

Team	Win pct.	Road	Coach	Starters	QB	Total
UW	10	-2	9	8	10	35
USC	7	-2	9	12	6	32
ASU	6	-3	7	11	9	29
Oregon	9	-3	10	6	7	29
WSU	5	-3	6	13	7	28
UCLA	8	-2	5	7	7	25
OSU	4	-3	6	9	7	23
Cal	3	-3	8	5	5	18
Tree	5	-4	5	2	8	16
UA	4	-3	6	2	6	15

 

Table 2. Likely starter at quarterback. In eight of the last nine years, the Pac-10 champion (Rose Bowl or Fiesta Bowl representative (2002)) has been led by a senior quarterback with Heisman potential.

 

& Pts=subjective ranking based on year in school, experience and pass efficiency ranking from last season.

Table 3. Returning starters (offense, defense, specialists)

* Number of returning starters multiplied by the win percentage for games played inside the Pac-10 in 2002. For example, WSU won 87.5 percent of its games last season and has 15 returning starters (15 * .875 = 13).

Table 4. Head coaches and their overall records while coaching in the Pac-10

* Number of seasons in Pac-10 as a head coach
** Coached at OSU during the 1997/98 seasons.
*** Based on win percentage and years' experience as a Pac-10 coach.

Table 5. Pac-10 road games that will be tough to win