FanHouse Tom Hansen

LOS ANGELES -- New Pac-10 commissioner Larry Scott made it clear Thursday at Pac-10 Media Day: he plans to examine carefully the major criticisms of his predecessor, Tom Hansen, but made no promises about any changes from the status quo.

The Pac-10 may be the most underexposed major conference in the country, has only one New Years Day bowl commitment and -- along with the Big Ten -- has no revenue-producing conference championship game. Critics chided Hansen because he was resistant to change, and there have been hopes that the younger Scott, who arrived from the Women's Tennis Association, would immediately implement improvements. He made no promises Thursday.

Here are some notes from his Q&A with the media Thursday in Los Angeles:

Every Monday during college football's endless offseason, The FanHouse Walk will put last week's stories to bed and deliver the essentials to bridge that agonizing space between now and September.

Zed's Dead, But Not The Spread -- Great find from Smart Football of UCLA coach Rick Neuheisel discussing in great detail the spread offense and UCLA's decision not to run it. Smart Football has his response as well, synthesizing Neuheisel's main arguments and where he gets confused before making the conclusion that the term has "quickly lost all use as a meaningful and descriptive term".

That stench the college football world is smelling these days is coming from Pasadena--where the Grandaddy of them All could be forced to put an undefeated Hawaii team that nobody thinks is any good against a 7-5 UCLA squad that lost to the Worst College Football Team Ever®, Notre Dame.

If UCLA beats USC and Arizona State falls to Arizona on Saturday, the five-loss Bruins will win a four-way tiebreaker and become the Pac Ten representative for the 2008 Rose Bowl Game, presented by Citi--and let the puns begin!

If Ohio State also gets picked up for the BCS Title Game, Tournament of Roses officials will have their choice of teams, but UCLA-Illinois just seems like a glorified Sun Bowl Matchup. Remember, a UCLA qualification for the Rose Bowl would open the door to the BCS for a number of other teams.* For the sake of staging a competitive bowl game, the Rose Bowl might turn next to Hawaii--though we understand Georgia has the inside track if the opponent is either USC or Arizona State.

So how did the Rose Bowl get into this mess?

If you thought the officiating was bad in last year's Oregon-Oklahoma game, the Pac Ten officials have taken incompetence to a new level in last week's Washington-Oregon State game, and Pac Ten Commissioner Tom Hansen is not amused:

"Our review of the game included study of the game tape by Coordinator of Football Officiating Dave Cutaia, Director of Instant Replay Verle Sorgen, football administrator Jim Muldoon and me, review of game reports from the officiating crew and instant replay officials, communications with the two institutions and follow-up communications with the referee of the game.

"We regret that there was flagrant misconduct on the part of some players which led to four ejections from the game, that there was an injury to Washington quarterback Jake Locker which increased the emotions of the players and that the instant replay crew failed to stop the game to review the play at the goal line with just under three minutes to play. On the play, it was ruled Oregon State's Yvenson Bernard fumbled. However, it appeared his knee had touched the ground before he lost the ball...

"We do believe the instant replay officials did not perform properly on the Bernard fumble play. There was human error in that while reviewing the available replays the crew failed to notify the game officials to stop play before the ball was snapped for the next play. It was not the fault of the equipment. The game should have been stopped and the play reviewed. The members of the IR crew have been reprimanded."