This Year, Dumb Starts Early

First there was the statement by Kirk Herbstreit on “College Football Live” this past Monday that the Pac 10 was now the “second best conference, and just a bit behind the SEC.” Evidently he based this on his seer-like insight into the season ahead, as to end the last season the Pac 10 had the following teams ranked in the AP top 25 –

4. USC
14. Cal
21. Oregon State

Compare this to 6 SEC teams in the same top 25, or the 4 Big 10 teams. Hell, even the Big East had 3 teams in the top 25, with a higher average rating (9th v 13th) than the Pac 10.

Last night, the “Worldwide Leader” follows up with the razor sharp analysis of Mark May who stated that, were Southern California in the SEC, they would go “undefeated”.

I’ll pause while you regain your composure.

May based his analysis, without apparent shame, on the fact USC has beaten Arkansas in two consecutive years.

Pause again.

Sure, Arkansas was 10-4 last year. The year before?

Well, they were 4-7.

Over the time past two years, besides losing to USC twice, Arkansas has lost to –

Auburn,
Georgia,
South Carolina,
LSU (2 times),
Florida,
Wisconsin,
Alabama and,
Vanderbilt

Arkansas, in other words, has not been a very competitive SEC team (despite their title game trip). High quality, mid quality and even some low quality SEC teams have beat Arkansas in the last 2 years.

USC is an excellent team, with great talent and great coaching. They would be a competitive SEC team.

But undefeated? Based on Arkansas as an example?

Sheesh.

What we are seeing is the ESPN-Trojan bandwagon on full throttle.

In July.

It’s not enough that USC should walk through their relatively easy schedule. No, we have to be convinced that the schedule is hard.

It’s going to be a long season.