Q+A with new Pac12 SBN site, BlockU

Do you have a link on that?

I think we may need to introduce you to our friend Mr. Pac-10 (soon to be Pac 12) JuJu…

He doesn’t take kindly to Rose Bowl mentions in June… this is his nap time

Don’t forget we beat Utah in the WNIT tournament! WNIT Champions!

The more they grow and the better we recruit, the easier it will be to bridge the talent gap in terms of depth. Let’s be honest here, Utah’s starting talent rivals nearly every P-10 school. Its talent beyond that, though, is what makes things more challenging.

With that said, it would certainly depend on the schedule and where the games are being played.

Ideally, I see us contending for a P-10 crown in year one. We might not win it – but we’ll be right there in the P-10 south (assuming that’s the conference we’re in and there is a championship game). Right now, I do believe, overall, we’re probably fifth or sixth in terms of talent in the P-10.

However, I believe we’ve got one of the best coaching staffs in the country and that will help a lot.

No one in Utah thinks it will be easy to compete in the PAC-10, we simply think we can compete there.

We have no illusions about being competitive in most sports, we need to build basketball, Baseball, track, and other programs badly.

However, can we “be competetive” in Football?

We already are. Does that mean we’ll win the conference right outta the box?

No, no one in Utah who has any idea of what college ball is says that; I mean, some rabid fan might insist that, but we don’t take that seriously.

Well, we Cal fans certainly know how to politely welcome or new conference mates

It was the Cal writer’s belief that Utah could compete, we are circumspect in our assessment.

As for pre-season, we’ve played Cal and OSU, UCLA, Oregon, in our pre-season as well. We did OK. You might recall that little pre-eason snack Oregon had for two straight years named Boise State?

If the PAC-10, and teams like Utah, want the nation to stop beating on our SOS and outcomes, we need to win the damned games we can. That means we can’t lose games to Boise and we have to win most of our bowl games. I’d say we all also have to schedule more intraconference games with good teams from the east and beat them on their turf, that alone will shut up the Eastern press. I know that some teams (cough Florida) refuse to travel outta state for non conference games, but we have to get some home and homes with the Big Ten and SEC, ACC and big East and Big 12 and play every game tough, winning our share. Utah has learned that, the PAC-10 used to do just that—let’s get there again.

SOS in inherently flawed because it will be scewed for the simple reason that 9/12 games are against your own conference. I’m pretty sure Oregon played like 4 top 10 teams last year, and only was ranked 6th. Below, of course, 4 SEC teams and probably Texas or ND. That’s just the politics of it. I think Oregon had the hardest SOS in the country last year, but were given 6th because they are on the West Coast.

The year Utah went undefeated (2008), they played 5 ranked teams. 5. Only Oklahoma did that in the same year, yet Utah’s strength of schedule was 30th-60th, depending on the rating system. They easily EASILY had a harder schedule than Florida that year, who only played 3 ranked teams (and lost at home to one), yet Florida was given the #2 SOS rating right behind Oklahoma.

It’s all politics. No one in the country thinks Air Force is a tough team except those teams who have played them. No one in the country thinks Wyoming is a tough team in Laramie unless you have played them (Just ask Texas last year). BYU has only lost like 3 games total at home in the last 6 years (Utah, FSU, TCU), but for some reason, playing ASU is probably credited more towards your SOS than playing BYU at home.

I don’t think any Utah fan is advocating that the PAC-10 is a weaker conference, or that Utah will breeze through, but Utah is a very good team, and has shown that over the last 10 years. I think Utah has a more realistic head on going into the PAC 10 than PAC 10 teams have going against Utah. Don’t think that Utah will settle in the bottom of the PAC, but expect them to be in the top 2-3 teams in the PAC at least every 3 years or so. (With rebuilding and reloading trends). They may only win it once every 20 years or so, but they may also win it 2-3 times/decade. I expect them to be in the conference championship once in their first 3 years.

I guess we will just see.

SOS is based on opponent Win/Loss . Every conference has 50 win loss when looking at only in conference games. For every conference win, there is a conference loss.

This means your in conference games have NO relevance to SOS. NONE! EVERY conference will be at 50% in conference. They will all be equal. What does matter is your in-conferences out-of-conference (OOC) games. Read that carefully. It means your conference members OOC games are the biggest factor of your SOS.

This means the best way to increase you SOS is have your entire conference schedule guaranteed OOC wins. The higher your conference goes over 50% win ratio in OOC games, the better your OOC.

This is why the PAC 10 gets screwed in SOS rankings. They only have 3 games to go over 50% instead of 4. Plus they schedule tougher opponents which don’t guarantee wins. This lowers the conference strength of schedule. Unfortunately the best way to improve your SOS is to make your entire conference schedule weak OOC games.

Here is a simplistic example. It will only compare the strength of your in conference games. Lets say you play 8 conference games and 4 OOC games.
1) Scenario: Conference schedules easy guaranteed cupcake wins .
The entire conference goes 4-0 OOC. The average conference record will be 4-4. This means that within conference opponent average record is 8-4. Very strong.
2) Scenario: Conference schedule tougher games with equal caliber teams.
The entire conference goes 2-2 OOC. The average conference record will be 4-4. This means that within conference opponent average record is 6-6. Very average, you look weak.

This is why the PAC 10 hurts themselves with 9 conference games. They have one extra game where the conference has a 50% win rate.

Now in conference games should account for 2/3 of your SOS; because your conference scheduled weak this is a huge part of the formula. How do you differentiate between you and your conference members.
1) Be the weakest in your conference. This will improve your strength of schedule.
2) Schedule really tough teams. Especially ones that will win their conference. This is extremely risky. You could lose. If everyone in your conference does it you will lose too because of the fault in the formula.
3) If you are strong, schedule a mediocre team in another conference that scheduled weak OOC games. If they go 4-4 in conference and 3-1 OOC you win. Remember, 4-4 in conference is average.
4) Schedule the top dog in the weakest conference. Yes, the conference champion of the Sun belt and MAC is gold. Take a look at this.
  a) Look at the schedule of the MAC and Sun belt conference champion.
  b) Find a team in their schedule that plays in a conference that schedules weak OOC games.
  c) Look at SOS rankings. 2009 Example below:
       - Troy won the Sun belt. Florida played Troy. Florida had great SOS.
       - Central Michigan won the MAC. Virginia Tech played Central Michigan.
         Virginia Tech had a great SOS.

But it seams like Cal is one of the PAC teams I look forward to playing the most. I am technically a corporate employee for my company based out of Palo Alto. I know a ton of people in the bay area and have travelled out there a lot.
Just look at the number of flights between SLC and (SFO, OAK, SJC).

MeanBobMean, Daedalus17, Utah Man Sir, JazzyUte, (and others if I missed them)

Thanks for taking the time to drop by. Personally, I know I have a lot of respect for your school, fans, and your coaching staff. I have a lot of friends with Utah ties one way or another and we’ve enjoyed a friendly rivalry whenever our paths have crossed over the years. Welcome to the Pac-12. As long as you can accept that stanfurd and ‘sc are evil, I think we’ll get along just fine.

First, thanks to many of you for the warm welcome to the PAC-10. I know many of us Utah fans are really excited to be a part of it and have cheered on various PAC-10 teams for years, feeling a sort of Western kinship to them. I never get tired of tOSU losing in the Rose Bowl. :)

I think most Utah fans are realistic and not expecting anything crazy like they will come in and dominate the PAC-10… BUT, I also don’t think many of us expect to be struggling with WSU at the bottom either. After all, we’ve played a lot of PAC-10 teams over the past decade—and I think most of you guys that have played us know that our football program is legit. Do I think PAC-10 is a stronger league top to bottom? Absolutely. Do I think the top 3-4 teams are dramatically better than the MWC’s? Not as sure (USC, in peak form, being the exception). If I was going to take a guess of how Utah will do, I’d have us winning somewhere between 75% and 50% of our games pretty regularly, with a great year every so often. Honestly, as a college football fan I am as curious as many of you to draw the comparison between the PAC-10 and MWC.