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Sep 26Liked by John Canzano

Things I don't understand- Oregon State is 45 mins from Eugene and closer to Portland, but Oregon State is the "country" school? The majority of WSU alums live around Seattle, but WSU is too "country?" Lastly, garbage Syracuse football (for example) gets credit for the New York City market but WSU/OSU have Seattle/Portland ignored?

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It just seems too coincidental that this season when the Pac12 has great teams and great games every week, ESPN and Fox--who have their chips all in on the Big 10 and SEC respectively--collude to destroy the Pac 12. Maybe I have been living in Italy too long where the science of "dietrologia" (assigning every political and cultural crisis to "hidden powers") has clouded my brain, but I can't help but thinking that this is a huge power play to keep college football dominant in the south and midwest.

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Sep 26·edited Sep 26Liked by John Canzano

Not only the PAC12 ratings are winners, but your 36-4 is fantastic. This is special considering we had 3 PAC12 ranked on ranked games, which has to be the 1st time ever in the PAC which you had 2 of those games right. This conference has been amazing in their last year and still have 6 ranked teams in the AP top 20 for the 2nd week in a row and 4 in the top 10 for the 1st time ever. And the next two, Colorado and UCLA, are 29th and 30th overall when you add the other teams receiving AP votes. I wish this nightmare would end and go back to keep the PAC we all love.

Still with an eye to next year given the die has been cast, here are the PAC records base on future conference allegiance and against all conferences as we enter Week #4:

Big 10/4 Pac teams 15-1, AP ranks #7, 8, 9, 30; 4-1 vs P12 schools; B10 competition vs 0-3 vs P12 (Losses Wisconsin/Nebraska/MSU)

Big 12/4 Pac teams 11-5, AP ranks #10, 29; 2-2 vs P12 schools; B12 competition 1-3 vs P12 (Win OkSt, Losses TCU,/TTU,/Baylor)

ACC/2 Pac teams 3-5, Neither ranked, 0-3 vs P12 schools, no ACC competition against P12 yet

PAC 2 (OSU/WSU) 7-1. AP ranks #16, 19; 1-1 vs P12 schools;

SEC 2-1 against P12 schools (Wins MissSt, Auburn; Loss Florida)

MWC 1-10 against P12 schools (One win Fresno)

Other Go5 FBS schools 0-4 against P12

FCS schools 1-8 against P12 (One win Sacramento State)

Week #5 the PAC2 starts it campaign on the field against the rest of the PAC12 with OSU taking on future Big 12 team & top 10 ranked Utah at home on Friday while WSU has a bye. The future Big10 teams have two against B12/Pac teams (SC at CU & UW at UA) while Oregon goes to ACC/Pac Stanford and UCLA has a bye. The other future ACC team will also try to get their 1st PAC win as they host Big 12 bound ASU.

Ed from Corvallis

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Sep 26Liked by John Canzano

Dan Lanning is a coach's coach. He spoke to his players, and in doing so captured the feelings of virtually every major college coach about the carnival in Boulder.

Lanning's speech also gave those coaches a valuable asset to fire up their own stakeholders, whom they are asking to pony up even more NIL cash to insulate their rosters from a raid by Colorado. It's working, too, at least from my limited sample.

No one is going to lay down and make it easy for the clown show. I don't doubt that every DC in the MAC was happy to provide notes on how Sean Lewis calls plays. It's only going to get tougher from here how that there's live film to work from. While I think 5-7 is likely I wouldn't bet on it.

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Sep 26·edited Sep 26Liked by John Canzano

Unfortunately, the smaller footprint of the Pac 12 network and the dismal performances of football teams on the national stage for the last several years depressed the viewership and interest at the same time the media deals were in play. Not to mention that the conference basically shut down during Covid when everyone else was playing. This year is too little, too late. It's sad.

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Sep 26·edited Sep 26

Since confession is good for the soul, here's mine: I had Oregon winning, but in a close game. I posted that several times/places. Flat out wrong. I'm done predicting spreads. Finished. It's a fool's game. I don't have a clue what I'm doing predicting spreads.

This column has some great details on TV viewership, media rights and more. It takes me back to your last column about Oregon State and Washington State improving their "brand" and why are they getting left behind?

Here's an idea on how to improve your brand: start winning. Consistently. Funny how that solves a lot of problems. Whining and complaining about "getting left behind" and "why isn't our brand better" and "it isn't fair" are reminiscent of crying when you lose and accusing your opponents of piling it on and rolling up the score. You don't like it when someone piles up points? Then stop it. Stop your opponent from scoring. Score a few points yourself. You're in charge of you. Nobody's going to help you fix your "brand". Nobody. It's not their job, it's yours. OSU and WSU: you are good this year and making a strong case for being a Power 5 conference member. Stop bawling like spoiled babies. It's demeaning and you're doing it to yourselves. Have some self-respect and get to work on winning. You'll be a lot happier with yourselves when it happens consistently.

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The Big Ten should consider Oregon state & Washington state because they would be perfect partner schools to Oregon and Washington for travel, especially for basketball and some of the other Olympic sports.

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Sep 26Liked by John Canzano

You could make a very nice living at 58%😀.

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Sep 26Liked by John Canzano

John, you can't win them all. But being rooted in substance continues to bring the clicks.

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I read somewhere that Cal and Stanford going to the ACC would make it more likely that the Big-12 eventually picks up WSU and OSU. Wouldn't surprise me if the Big-12 is waiting for more clarity from the courts regarding the Pac-12 assets.

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I wonder what Coach Lanning will say to his team in the pre-game speech? The scenarios are pretty much the opposite of last week.

- Not a national audience (Pac-12 network)

- Not a national story and an inferior team (Stanford)

Yet, it is Stanford and it is a road game. We all know what happened in years past when playing Stanford, where the Ducks should have won but didn't. I want to see them play with the same intensity and consistency 2 weeks in a row!

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I've said it before re the Big10 & 12; why are we all (most of us) leaving for inferior conferences????

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No idea if this is accurate or not, but I hope so:

https://youtu.be/cbdnsB9pvFE?si=-RvdMVGwSPBMYFx4

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If I can be serious for a minute:

Why keep a Ferrari parked in the garage. I like John’s idea of seeing a few pre-determine series from Chiles. With NIL and the transfer portal there’s no guarantee this kid will stick around forever.

Let’s take the Ferrari for an occasional spin.

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That broadcast from Autzen for a single game was the 1st time this year that a CFB game had over 10M viewers. I am glad so many people watched how good Oregon is, but I think the Deion affect was the most significant since CU has been #1 or #2 in CFB ratings all 4 weeks they've had games. My guess that will happen again next week with SC in Boulder.

https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/college-football-tv-ratings/#week4

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Good article.

How about reaching out to Big 12 folks and seeing what they think of the numbers? If they add pacific coast teams there's interest from the pacific coast in their games. If not, who here watches?

As a question are the former Pac 12 teams in the Big 12 in OSU/WSU's corner? Or against them?

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