Pac-10 Coaching Board

To begin the season, here is my ranking of the coaches in the Pac-10. Each week, I'll evaluate their previous game, and adjust the poll accordingly.

Pete Carroll
Southern Cal
Arguably the best coach in the country, Carroll has been amazing since 2002. On the downside, he's mostly coached in a depleted PAC-10, and has had several opportunities to play for a national championship, only to lose to lesser quality teams - '03 Cal, '06 UCLA and Oregon St, '07 Stanford. Still, six consecutive PAC-10 Championships makes Carroll head-and-shoulders above the rest of the conference.

Mike Bellotti
Oregon
Bellotti has had a great run at Oregon, making Autzen Stadium a daunting place to play in the Pac 10, and prior to Carroll's arrival in LA, he was much closer to the top coach in the conference. He still holds the No. 2 position, fairly firmly, but has not been to a BCS bowl game since 2001, and has yet to make a Rose Bowl appearnce. Still, Bellotti doesn't seem to be losing ground in the Pac 10; prior to the unfortunate injury to QB Dennis Dixon last season, the Ducks were on a path for the BCS National Championship game, and probably a Heisman Trophy for Dixon. I don't see Bellotti falling too low in these rankings.

Dennis Erickson
Arizona State
Erickson has had success at pretty much all of his collegiate stops, and the general opinion is that he will continue to have success at ASU. The Sun Devils won 10 games in Erickson's first season, and are ranked No. 15 in the preseason poll. Not mentioning his great success at the U, take notice that Erickson took Oregon State to a BCS Bowl in 2000. Oregon State.

Jeff Tedford
Cal
Tedford, similar to Ferentz at Iowa, was the soon-to-be, up-and-coming, next-sure-fire NFL star, who has begun to flounder at Cal. His teams have become a major factor in determining the conference pecking order, but whenever Cal is about to take control of the conference, they typically lose their nerve, and this reflects on Tedford. Some of this might be that Tedford is losing his drive and focus due to the administration's inability to upgrade facilities, and realize Cal students care more about living in trees than going to games.

Rick Neuheisel
UCLA
Slick Rick is back in the Pac-10 after being dumped by Washington in 2003 for participating in a NCAA Basketball pool, which is something he would have never gotten in trouble for at Colorado, but unless you kill someone, evidently no one really cares what goes on in Boulder. In 2000, Neuheisel took Washington to the Rose Bowl and had a claim to the national championship game, but was edged out by Florida State. Kind of hard to believe that Washington was relevant as recently as 2000, and I'm betting most people at UW wish that Slick Rick were still in charge. Given that Neuheisel is not afraid of slipping a Benjamin or two to let a recruit have a good time, I see him getting good talent in LA. Prob good enough to compete with Carroll.

Mike Riley
Oregon State
Mike Riley has made a career at Oregon State, coaching the Beavers in 1997 and 1998, before going to a horrible stint at the San Diego Chargers, and then back to Corravllis. Unfortunately for Riley, the best times for the Beavers occurred when he was with the Chargers, with Dennis Erickson taking them to a BCS Bowl. Riley, who almost had the Alabama job in 2002, went back to Oregon in 2003, where his only real claim was defeating USC in 2006 on the way to a 10 win season. While not a horrible coach, each year is a struggle for OSU, and Riley will find it hard to move up with the bigger names ahead of him.

Jim Harbaugh
Stanford
Perhaps coaching the victor in the biggest college football upset since ND lost to a community college back in the '20's, Harbaugh appears to be an on-the-rise coach, but that adulation needs to wait. While the USC win was spectacular, Stanford and Harbaugh have a long way to go to be competitive in the Pac10. Stanford has had little success since Ty Willingham left the Cardinal. It will be interesting to see if Harbaugh can build in his 2nd season.

Mike Stoops
Arizona
Surely Arizona has realized by now that they hired Mike Stoops and not Bob Stoops from Oklahoma.

Paul Wulff
Washington State
Paul Wulff is in his first year at Wash St; that's honestly all I know about him. Still, it puts him at number 9.

Ty Willingham
Washington
Ty Willingham should've been fired by Stanford. Then his coaching career would be as irrelevant as his Husky teams have been.