Slingin' Quack: 2017 PAC-12 North Preview

Slingin' Quack

Ifo Bomaye and I unite for a long podcast on the PAC-12 North. We go through the PAC-12 media conference projections starting with washington, followed by Stanford, Washington State, briefly Oregon, Oregon State, and then Cal. Unfortunately, washington is probably going to be over on their 10 win over/under line set by Vegas. They have great coaching and they’ve lost great players the last couple years and bounced back just fine. Their schedule sets up well and it’s hard to imagine them losing three games. Stanford is next up and the 8.5 is comically low. That’s a clear over. Their schedule also sets up well getting Washington at home, where they are statistically favored. They’re countering the rest of college football’s efforts to get faster on defense while they get bigger on offense. They’re so good every year and have had good recruiting classes so it’s hard to imagine them losing 4 games. Third is Washington State and this could be a year that they slide. Luke Falk is back but the secondary has some big shoes to fill that the defensive front may not be able to mask with their coach now at Oregon. We briefly touch on Oregon because, obviously, we’ll get into more detail over the next few weeks. Gary Andersen has been at Oregon State for three years and has been giving some big schools competition for recruits. Oregon State is basically a mini-Stanford with their offensive strategy. With a lot of returners they will definitely improve, but probably not enough to get more wins than they did last year. Last is Cal. Cal has some major rebuilding but the coaches are extremely good and I think they will have some major problems this year, but in 2-3 years they will be scary.