PASADENA, Calif. – With the Pac-10 Football Media Day set in the baking heat of the Rose Bowl last Thursday, Stanford coach Jim Harbaugh was well sheltered under a canvas tent.
He didn’t have as much help burying bad memories, as questions led him to Cal’s upset win in the Big Game last season – which linebacker Mike Mohamed sealed with an interception on the Cardinal’s home field.
“There’s no feeling as bad as walking off the field not taking that Axe with you,” Harbaugh responded.
He and his team may take some comfort in the fact that they’ve been tabbed to finish fourth in the conference, putting them above Cal – which is three spots back – for the first time since 2002.
The Bears haven’t dropped out of the top four since 2003.
But seventh place in a preseason poll likely won’t mean much when kickoff comes. Although voters have selected the Pac-10 champion in nine of the past 10 years, due in no small part to USC’s dominance, the West Coast media was more bipolar than ever this July.
For starters, defending champion Oregon received 15 first-place votes, just three more than the Trojans. While not quite a razor-thin margin, it was still good for the second-closest poll ever.
A record seven teams received at least one first-place vote in the Pac-10 preseason media poll, including eighth-place UCLA.
Arizona, Stanford and the Ducks – who return 18 starters – were among the seven. They were each also picked to finish as low as ninth.
For the Bears, it’s just more room to try and claw their way back to respectability.
“We kind of do feel like underdogs, but that’s fine,” Mohamed said. “We just know we have to show up and play. We’ve been the favorites and we’ve lost.”
It’s a familiar refrain for the blue and gold masses that pile into Memorial Stadium. Most recently, the preseason hype surrounding Cal deflated with season-ending losses to Washington and Utah.
But what appears to be a rare year of downturned expectations also coincides with USC’s postseason ban. Even if the Trojans manage to finish undefeated, their year will not extend past the season finale against the Bruins.
“It goes to show that anybody can win it,” Mohamed said.
Even lowly Washington State, unsurprisingly picked to finish last after managing just three wins over the past two seasons, wasn’t giving up any ground.
Cougars coach Paul Wulff reminded the press that his program has been to the Rose Bowl twice in the past dozen years. Among Pac-10 teams, only USC has appeared in more.
Added Washington State defensive end Kevin Kooyman: “We’re going to shock some people this season.”
Airing It Out
As he is prone to do before every fall, Cal coach Jeff Tedford stated again that the quarterback position is open to competition.
But it’s doubtful that you’ll find anyone who expects to see Kevin Riley start his senior year on the bench – even Tedford.
“Kevin is the guy who takes the first snaps,” he said. “Kevin is the active leader in the Pac-10 in wins, touchdown passes and starts. We are really hoping that his experience will really help us and translate to more success on the football field.”
In a conference that is arguably home to the nation’s top passers, hoping won’t be enough. The Huskies’ Jake Locker may be first off the NFL Draft board in nine months. Stanford’s Andrew Luck and USC’s Matt Barkley both had solid freshman campaigns.
But who might emerge as the most dangerous?
“I would say Washington and Arizona,” UCLA safety Rahim Moore said. “They’re like a family with their offense.”
Building a Brand
Armed with a new logo and dramatically narrated trailers, Pac-10 commissioner Larry Scott and all 10 coaches started off preseason promotion last Tuesday in New York to change the conference’s image – a reason why the tour ended in the Rose Bowl rather than the hotel lobbies of past years.
“We’ve been perceived as that finesse conference for years,” Bruins coach Rick Neuheisel said.
“If you got into a conversation with somebody on the other side of the Mississippi River, they would tell you, ‘Oh, you guys just play that throwing-around ball and not the three-yard-and-cloud-of-dust like the rest of us do and tough guy stuff.’
“We have a perception hill to climb.”