Recently, Stanford University unveiled its imaginative new slogan for the upcoming football season. Are you ready? Hold your breath. It's astounding, it's going to rock your world. "We work." 
Pity the poor Pac-10; its revenues are barely half of the SEC, Big Ten, and, shudder, the ACC.
Former Stanford, Notre Dame and Washington head coach Tyrone Willingham has reportedly found a new job, as an assistant coach in the upstart United Football League.
College Football Spring Storylines 2009 looks at the key developments and big news from spring ball.
Stanford football coach Jim Harbaugh is a hot commodity these days after turning the moribund Cardinal program around into a respectable Pac-10 outfit. Meanwhile, the coaching change season has started particularly early and particularly bloody this year, raising the profile and earnings potential for coaches like Harbaugh."Let me be clear on this. I'm 100 percent committed to Stanford University,'' Harbaugh said. "I love my job at Stanford. I have a great wife, a new baby, I love my job, I love the guys I coach for. I could not imagine coaching anywhere else.'
"We'll be ready, we've seen a lot of tape and it is a good challenge for us," said Marinelli, a 6-foot-7, 297-pound fourth-year junior. "But on the same token it's going to go bad for them at one point and we are going to gash the (expletive) out of them, I promise you that. So keep bringing it, keep bringing it. They have one sack all year on 200 blitzes."That would normally be enough bulletin board material for Notre Dame to get fired up. But just in case Notre Dame needed a little more, Marinelli was willing to go on.
"I grew up with a bunch of Irish and Italian Catholic people back home. And all the Irish Catholic people, all they talk about is Notre Dame this, Notre Dame that. And they've never even been there, ya know. So I hate those guys, I hate that school."And now you can never go home. Marinelli did issue an apology, but after what he said I find it really had to believe he's sorry. That would be like me saying I'm sorry I wrote this post. For his part, Harbaugh indicated that Marinelli's views were not that of the Stanford football team. But that's just because he didn't say it first.
Harbaugh told Stanford beat reporters, "In Chris' case, it's out of character. He let his emotion and his passion about this game get the best of him. That's certainly not what I think is in his heart, and it's definitely not the view of Stanford football or the university."
Of course, Harbaugh took public swipes at Cal, Michigan and USC in his first few months on the job, then answered follow-up questions by saying, "We bow to no program here at Stanford University."
So we come to the bottom of the barrel, so to speak. The less-than-mediocre,
the outhouse, bottom-feeders, however you want to word it is fine. It is what it is.
And in the Pac 10, the climb out of Dregs-ville can be a long, slow, steady incline
vs. the hope of quickly sprinting up the ladder. Of course there is always hope for
the Dregs, but reality usually hits once things get going as the season rolls on.
With that, we present the Dregs of the Pac 10.
|
WASHINGTON HUSKIES |
 It is hard not to like the future of Jake Locker. Big, strong, and exceptionally gifted, Locker has a set of tools rarely seen at the quarterback position. But Locker isn't all the way there, at least not yet. While he was fantastic as a running QB last year, nearly turning in a 1,000-yard season (986), throwing the ball was another matter. Locker completed a conference-low 47% of his pass attempts last year, and his QB rating of 105 placed him only ahead of Tavita Pritchard among Pac 10 passers. The worry for UW is the talent around Locker. While there is promise among a group of youngsters in Anthony Boyles, Devin Aguilar, Curtis Shaw and others, seven of the top eight receivers from last year have graduated. Factor in the loss of Louis Rankin, the first UW running back to top the 1,000-yard mark since 1997, and you can see there could be some serious growing pains early. Defensively, UW was a mess last year. 446 yards allowed per game in '07, only the worst in school history. But UW didn't sit still, firing defensive coordinator Kent Baer and bringing in former NFL coordinator Ed Donatell. But while the buzz so far has been positive on the new defensive look, there are still some big holes. The defensive line is young and inexperienced, and now we have word that leading tackler EJ Savannah is out for the time being with academic issues. Factor into everything the schedule, which includes an opener at Oregon, plus out-of-conference matchups against BYU, Oklahoma and Notre Dame? And five Pac 10 road games to boot? It looks like another year down the ladder for UW. |
| Most Ridiculous Moment |
Have you heard the one about the 41-point underdog, on the road against mighty USC, yet somehow managing to win the game? Talk about ridiculous, but seriously, it happened. And there's some juicy back story here too. Seems that Stanford's hot shot new coach, Captain Comeback Jim Harbaugh, started a mini war of words between himself and the rockstar of rockstars, Pete Carroll. Harbaugh even floated a not-so-secret rumor making the rounds that Carroll wouldn't mind a return to the NFL. Who is this rookie Pac 10 coach to say such things? Carroll will keep his foot on the gas pedal from kickoff to QB kneel-down. They might as well not even get off the bus. Stanford will be fed to the lions in front of 90,000 blood-thirsty fans in the Coliseum. 
