BOULDER — Enjoying the Pac-12 yet, folks? Yes, this is the league in which a backup fifth-year senior quarterback named Marshall Lobbestael is 13th in the country in passing and leads Washington State’s comeback over Colorado.
It’s where one week later Colorado travels to Stanford to face the best college quarterback since John Elway. Then the Buffs go to Seattle to face Keith Price, who has gone from a position battle in the spring to a top-10 ranking.
Then here comes Darron Thomas, the engineer of the last year’s national runners-up Oregon Ducks, again the highest-scoring team in the land but this time at 52 points a game.
Tired yet? We’ve got more.
The Buffaloes visit Arizona State and its 6-foot-8 behemoth quarterback, Brock Osweiler. Then comes USC’s Matt Barkley, who might be the first quarterback drafted next spring not named Andrew Luck.
Six of the top 22-rated passers in the country hail from the Pac-12. It’s a time-honored tradition that goes all the way back to consensus All-American Frankie Albert of Stanford in the old wing-T.
“System-wise,” said Oregon State coach Mike Riley, an Oregon native, “the Pac-10 Conference, going back to the Pac-8, there’s always been some great quarterbacks who played in great systems coached by people who really knew the passing game.”
Remember, before Bill Walsh made the West Coast offense famous with the 49ers, he used it to lift Stanford to its first bowl game in six years in 1977, and did it again in 1978. Washington’s Don James came to Washington and sent nine quarterbacks to the NFL.
Then Pete Carroll came from the NFL to turn USC into a nearly decade-long dynasty and produce two quarterbacks who won Heismans: Carson Palmer and Matt Leinart.
“A lot of it is what the offensive philosophy is in throwing the football and the pro-style thing,” Arizona State coach Dennis Erickson said. “To me, it’s kind of the same thing.”
The NFL’s influence remains huge in the Pac-12. Nine head coaches in the FBS were head coaches in the NFL. The Pac-12 has three of them: Erickson, Riley and USC’s Lane Kiffin. Five others were NFL assistants. The SEC also has three ex-NFL head coaches, but only five of its 12 offensive coordinators ever coached in the NFL.
The Pac-12 has nine.
Compound that over the years and you have a conference that emulates the NFL in more than just shared markets.
“I’ve spent my whole career as a coach in the Pac-10 and now the Pac-12,” said Cal coach Jeff Tedford, who grew up in suburban L.A. “That’s tape you’re watching every week, so there are a lot of ideas. Everybody borrows things from each other in college football, so just being around that style and watching that week in and week out has grown us in the same tradition of what the Pac-10 has been.”
Pac-12 coaches are teachers of quarterbacks. Washington’s Steve Sarkisian grew up going to USC games, became USC’s offensive coordinator under Carroll and then broke down Jake Locker’s passing mechanics, turning him into the No. 8 pick in last spring’s draft.
This year Sarkisian transformed Price from a dual-threat prep star to a cerebral passer with 17 TD passes and only four interceptions. Sarkisian has a “time-honored” coaching secret.
“Play to the quarterback,” he said. “Allow him to do the things he does well so that he can be successful on Saturdays. Don’t be stubborn to the point where we’re running some types of plays that don’t fit the strengths of the quarterback.”
It’s a new world, Colorado. And the Buffaloes enter that new world with arguably the most banged-up, suspended, patched-up, inexperienced collection of cornerbacks in college football.
Saturdays in Ames don’t look so bad now, do they?
