Jon Joseph

It will probably sound like a 100K, no doubt. The TT stadium is the 44th largest in CFB and sits 60,454.

College Football News is pretty good at this stuff. Here is a projected 2023 preseason AP Poll. 5 of Oregon's 2023 opponents make this list including Texas Tech at 25. https://collegefootballnews.com/cfn/ap-poll-top-25-preseason-projection-2023-rankings-prediction

USC with a game at South Bend and having to play Oregon, Utah, and UW along with another 6 conference games has it easy? The Ducks play all 4 Pac-12 'favorites' in 2023 with 2 of the games on the road and play at TX Tech, a team predicted to finish 4th in the B12. Washington State plays Wisconsin OOC and also, of course, plays 9 conference games. If a Pac-12 team deserves to be on this list it's UCLA. I agree Charles, for PFF this is off-the-wall. Frankly, unexpected bias. This just in. Games versus Missouri, Kentucky, South Carolina, Vanderbilt, Arkansas, Mississippi State, Ole Miss, last seen dropping its 5th game in a row in a bowl beat down authored by Texas Tech, are not opponents like no other in college football. And A+M didn't make a bowl game last season. And in the B1G, what teams other than Michigan, Ohio State, and Penn State offer superior competition? SMH. 😵

And UCLA, if Dante Moore is the real deal, and with the benefit of missing Oregon and UW and playing Cal and Stanford could also be in the mix along with Oregon, SC, Utah, UW, and Oregon State.

Thank you, Joshua. Always great to read your takes. I am not as sanguine as you Joshua and others on the board when it comes to playing Texas Tech in Lubbock. Assuming TT doesn't have a look-ahead problem in the opening game at Wyoming, TT, and its fans will be off the charts pumped up for this game against the Ducks. It will be loud and it also will likely be very hot in Buddy Holly country. Tyler Shough in his 6th season of CFB will be pumped (Hopefully, too pumped) to pay back Oregon for the hand Mario, I never met a QB I liked, Cristobal handed him. The vote was 9-3 against taking TT and other B12 orphans into The Elite Club. I have no idea as to how Oregon voted in this matter. But I do know it is one thing to reject an applicant for anything with civility and no need to rub an applicant's face in the Elite Club nonsense. The fans of TT will not forget this slight. Will this matter on the field of play? Probably not but an already incented group of football-mad Texas fans would have already been pumped to beat any Pac-12 team without this added incentive. 2023, D3 is staying with the clock stopping after 1st downs. I am somewhat confused as to whether the clock running after 1st downs will be implemented in 2023 for all divisions above D3. (Help, please.) TT ran the most plays from scrimmage in P5/G5 football last season. Hopefully, the rule will be in place to help slow the TT O down. As noted above it will be hot in Lubbock and this could test the depth of players on defense in particular. Best case, Oregon in 2023 goes 12-1 and makes the final Final 4 as it made the first Final 4. Mario's, in fairness, and Dan Lanning's recruiting pays off and equally important DL as a number of us believe, did a masterful job of plugging holes with players out of the portal on O and particularly, on D. Will Stein seamlessly steps in for Dilly. The talent is there and the players better understand DL's D in 2023. As Charles has artfully noted, you need a freak at every level to play the "Georgia defense." The Ducks run game and passing attack allows Oregon to have the best-balanced O in the conference. USC cannot simply shoot out its way to a conference title. SC has on paper also improved on D with players taken from the portal but these guys have to be integrated and coached up. A big if with Grinch still on board. Worst case. Oregon goes 9-3. As Joshua notes the conference is ridiculously deep in 2023. And as Forum readers are aware no team since CU and Utah came on board has gone 9-0 in conference play. There will be a number of games in 2023 where the bottom half of the conference pulls off upsets. But I expect Oregon will go 10-2/ 8-1 in the conference and this will be good enough to get to Las Vegas and rematch with USC. SC has a nice leg up playing Utah, UW, and UCLA at home and missing an Oregon State team it was fortunate to defeat by 3 points last season in Corvallis. 50 days or so before the games kick off and we can focus on football and not a bunch of off-season junk. Thanks again, Joshua.

5 not in contention? The answer is, 4? I certainly hope so. These 5 college football contenders are the most likely to disappoint in 2023 SATURDAYBLITZ.COM Every single year, there are some college football teams that are so hyped up that they cannot possibly live up to the expectations...

Best tackle Scott Frost ever made was keeping Sugar Ray Blount out of the stands.

David, based on any precedent, other than for the Death Penalty handed to SMU, the penalties against SEC were way over the line. These penalties not only hurt SC they hurt the entire conference. There is no standard. The NCAA is a kangaroo court that makes it up as they go along. West Coast and Midwest schools have historically suffered disproportionate penalties. It's a $cam but it Ju$t Mean$ More, right?

However, the NCAA in its official report noted full cooperation from SC. Pete Carroll was specifically cleared. Todd McNair, SC RB coach, was the only thin connection between Reggie and his agent. McNair sued and ultimately scored a big settlement from the NCAA that Oregon helped pay for along with the legal fees. Miami AD, Paul Dee's, house was a blazing inferno, and he and his friends put a campfire at SC with a ten-truck fire alarm. Bush and his family received extra benefits from an agent paid so that Reggie would not play for SC his senior season. Ole Miss and Tennessee were paying dozens of recruits to play for pay. Freeze and Pruitt both received NCAA Show Cause penalties. And this kind of cheating did not result in the loss of a bowl game. One booster will cover the $8M fine. It was a massive hose job and certainly did not help the fledgling Pac12 Network.

Completely believable considering this guy has CU suffering its first loss against "defending national champion" TCU. I guess Gold slept through the champ game versus Georgia? The quality of sports journalism today including editing is pathetic. Gold: Predicting the first loss for every Pac-12 team SATURDAYOUTWEST.COM Sorry, Pac-12 fans, no team is going undefeated this season. Not with the talent at the top. But some teams will have their hopes...

This is the nonsense I am talking about. First, who are Patrick's unknown sources? 2nd, the conference and potential media partners would be wrong not to investigate the numbers additions to the Pac-10 would drop to the bottom line. But looking at the above media numbers why would the conference be in a rush to add any of the teams Patrick discusses? Why add the San Diego and DFW markets if a minuscule number of fans are watching SDSU and SMU play football? https://athlonsports.com/college-football/dan-patrick-smu-and-sdsu-to-the-pac-12-is-likely-boise-state-and-unlv-maybe

Oregon in record time was dinged for using a 'runner' to help with recruiting, something that never happened in Dixie except for Cam's father shopping him, right? Ole Miss ran a pay-for-play program and received nothing close to the penalties laid on SC. And the cheating coach behind it all is back coaching in the SEC at Auburn. UNC athletes benefited from phony classwork for two decades, crickets. Ohio State guys swapped gear for Tats and suffered the loss of a bowl game. It's a double if not a triple standard. Unfortunately, money at least the love of money, has made it impossible for the Pac-10 before CU and Utah and the B1G before Nebraska, Maryland, and Rutgers to stay above and out of the fray. To keep the eye on the Rose Bowl prize and let other conferences cheat their way to success. The $cam continues.

The following numbers come from Media.com and are the average number of viewers for all 133 P5 and G5 programs during the 2022 season. As Charles has so correctly pointed out, Oregon finished 7 overall in the number of total folks watching the Ducks in 2022; again, this is a ranking of the average number of people who tuned in to watch a given team play ball. First, let's take a look at the top 10 and disabuse ourselves of the notion that media market size ipso facto correlates to the number of people tuning in. With streaming of sporting events on the way the number of folks who buy in to watch will matter more than the media market in which a team is located. 1. Ohio State - located in a medium size city in Ohio led the way with an average of 5.8M fans tuning in. 2. Alabama - Tuscaloosa, AL. is not a booming metropolis. 3. Michigan - Detroit is a good-sized but not a huge market. 4. Tennessee - Knoxville is not a large market. 5. Georgia - Atlanta is a huge market. 6. Notre Dame - Win one for the Gipper but the market size does not wake up the echoes. 7. LSU - Baton Rogue and New Orleans are not huge markets. 8. Texas - Austin is a big market and Texas folk are crazy about football. 9. Penn State - Happy Valley may be happy but it is also obscure. 10. Clemson - It's a beautiful college town but Clemson, SC is a two-traffic-light burg. Looking at the above list it's easy to see that brand and the actual number of folks watching trump the number of potential eyes on the prize. Let's look at how the Pac-10 was ranked in 2022 (USC came in at 14 and UCLA at 25) with the understanding that conference numbers suffered from broadcasts on a functionally insolvent network and by many kick-offs of the best games coming at 10:30 PM Eastern time. The network going away and hopefully being replaced by a better media platform will help with part of the problem but you cannot fix geography. 12. OREGON - 2.210 M - The Portland/Eugene market wins out over the LA market twice. Which is nice. 33. UTAH - 1.6 M - A pain in Puddles booty but a good addition. 34. WASHINGTON - 1.150 M - Little brother lives up north. 41. WASHINGTON STATE - 907 K -Who knew? One of the smallest media markets in the conference punches way above its weight class. 45. CAL - 857K - Show me the money, Bruins. 47. STANFORD - 846 K - Notre Dame likely helps the Cardinal cause. 57. OREGON STATE - 625 K - Punching above its weight class against far larger media markets. 61. ARIZONA - 506 K - Wait for basketball season. 66. COLORADO - 353 K - The investment in a new coach is Primed to bring in a far better ROI. 70. ASU - 314 K - Dilly has his hands full. This based on market size is a bad showing. What do the numbers look like for G5 add-ons to the Pac-10? 64. Tulane - 354 K 65. Boise State - 353 K 71. SMU - 312 K 79. Fresno State - 220 K 85. San Diego State - 198 K. None of the above argue for a reduction in the current 10% media share, augmented by a larger cut of the proceeds from the expanded college football playoff and hopefully also by the basketball tournament shares. Based on the 2022 numbers, what teams would be the best choice to create a Power 3, 16-team conference? 10. CLEMSON - 3 M 12. OREGON - 2.21 M 13. TCU - 2.2 M 15. FSU - 2.03 M 24. OK ST - 1.68 M 29. BAYLOR - 1.3 M 30. KANSAS ST - 1.23 M 33. UTAH - 1.16 M 34. WASHINGTON - 1.15 M 38. BYU - 997 K 41. WASHINGTON ST - 907 K 42. NC ST - 881 K 45. CAL - 857 K 46. UNC - 849 K (behind NC ST and CAL!) 47. STANFORD - 846 K 48. SYRACUSE - 841 K It's water over the dam but dam it, the Pac could have added B12 orphans and been recognized as a 'good guy' while destroying a competitor. How often does this happen in the world of big business? Here are a few other candidates oft mentioned, especially the ACC teams, in speculative expansion by the B1G and the SEC. Other than Clemson and FSU, how would any other ACC team benefit the SEC's bottom line? And if expansion was predicated on media numbers, why would the B1G add UNC and UVA and not Oregon and UW? FYI - 49. GEORGIA TECH/ 54. TX TECH - 680 K/ 59. MIAMI - 608 K/ LOUISVILLE - 496 K/ BC - 322 K/ 75. VIRGINIA TECH - 237 K/ 78. VIRGINIA - 220 K/ 93. DUKE - 115,700 Meanwhile, it's clear based on these numbers that Oregon is in a superlative position no matter the way in which conference affiliation might shift. Stay cool cats.

Some nice love for the Ducks here. 1 of 8 teams picked to win the CFB title in 2023 and with a good shot at beating SC which is also on the list. And no Utah and no UW. One of these 8 college football teams will win the national title in 2023 SATURDAYBLITZ.COM College football fans everywhere are craving its return. We're at the point in the summer in which it's felt like years since we last saw live co...

Another Baghdad Bob appearance; I love it! Has this guy ever heard of Billy Jo Herbert who got paid and sent Don James into retirement?

Will Schill and/or the AD be next?

Great take but what saved him at UCLA was the dead money the Bruins were already paying to fired coaches. Chip has done no better on the field than Jim Mora who out recruited Chip and showed his bona fides by turning around a dismal UConn program last season. I have seen nothing out of Chip since that proves his coaching genius. Nothing innovative since his days at Oregon. He did OK with the Eagles before a guy named Chip Kelly scored the GM job. And his time with the 49ers? No Pac-12 titles or conference champ game appearances for UCLA since Chip signed on. He blew the bowl game with Pitt last season with a late-in-the-game meltdown on a kickoff and on D. He was handed 3 OOC wins in 2022 and defeated Alabama State with a walk-off FG. 2023 will be another season without a P5 opponent OOC and he also has the benefit of missing Oregon and UW and playing Cal and Stanford. So, the record will be OK, 9-3/8-4, but I don't see him making it to the conference champ game. Next season he has to play at LSU and does not get LSU in LA and in a free fall under Ed Orgeron. And drawing Michigan as a permanent B1G opponent is not ideal for UCLA's future in the B1G. It's not Lincoln Riley's $9M base salary but what has he done in Westwood to earn $4.7 million a year? In the B1G, I see him on the same level as Minnesota's PJ Fleck. Although Fleck did take W Michigan to an NY6 bowl.

I doubt the $ is there, from state legislatures and otherwise to fund the acquisition price. You would need a lot of Uncle Phil's to pull this off. And ESPN managed by a committee of Pac-10 presidents? I've seen this movie before and it's a horror movie.

How about the folks who bought into Microsoft's initial public offering? And this is not as risky by any means. It's clear with Disney's recent reiteration that ESPN will be moving to all-streaming sooner rather than later that streaming athletic events is the wave of the not-so-distant future. Cord cutting has given Disney/ESPN little choice in the matter. Access to streaming apps and switching from app to app will be streamlined and broadcast quality will improve. Recording events streamed will improve. In recent streaming news, UTube is paying $2B for NFL Sunday night broadcast rights; DirecTV was paying $1B for the same inventory. As an old timer, I feel your pain but technology advances whether we like it or not and people have voted and are voting by cutting the cord.

Bad HC, no doubt, but he was just fine as an OC. Hard for many folks to make the final step up.

Good call on Chip but at Oregon he was assisted by an all-world group of assistant coaches who coached 3* recruits, or lesser recruits, up. When he didn't inherit a ready-made coaching staff his hires have not been all that impressive. He was re-upped at UCLA on the condition that he dump his DC coordinator.

For stats gurus out there, has any conference with 12 or fewer teams ever had 3 new head football coaches win ten or more games in their first season? Not a quiz. I don't know the answer.

'Pivotal?' This is not my headline choice. I don't believe any of the coaches discussed in this article will be on the hot seat if their 2nd campaign is all that disappointing to the fans and based on preseason polls. But with Dan Lanning, Riley, DeBoer, and more on the list, including 2nd-year head coach Texas Tech's, Joey McGuire, I think this may be of interest to Ducks fans. There is IMO too much love for a man with no D in his name, Riley and the Trojans based upon D guys brought in via the portal. Someone has to coach these guys up, right? And it's the same someone who put a group of matadors, Ole!, on the field last season. But like it or not, and I don't like it, SC is a media magnet with 2 L's versus the Utes and a Cotton Bowl meltdown versus a G5 team seeming to have been lost in the positive media wash. College football coaches entering Year 2 who are facing defining campaigns in the 2023 season - CBSSports.com WWW.CBSSPORTS.COM These 10 coaches have pivotal years ahead in the 2023 college football season Going into 2023, I believe Dan Lanning did a better job of plugging holes on the D out of the portal.

It's rumored that George Kliavkoff will speak. Will he need a ventriloquist?

UCLA at USC will be the best game of the season as it was a year ago? This LA guy needs to get away from the beach and out from under the sun. USC? Sorry but with UW and Oregon on the schedule, IMO SC is far from an overwhelming favorite. And Oregon at 4 behind UW and Utah? I can see it from the media but I don't see it happening on the field of play. You will not win every shoot out and as I have noted elsewhere +22 in turnover margin will not happen again. I also believe that Troy Dye will be missed. Riley could win the conference title and not get the coaches' votes as COY. Unfortunately, I do agree that with the conference this deep and a 9-game conference schedule the Pac-12 will not have a team in the final Final 4. There will be a number of upsets with lower-ranked teams rising up on a given Saturday. I think Arizona in Tucson will be a tough out.