And a counterpoint

This time aimed at the Pac-10.  Don't ever accuse me of not being fair.

Here's an article by the Daily News' Scott Wolf, a USC beat writer.  Not exactly a homer, as you will see once you read it.

It's a bit simplistic, but Wolf argues that Pac-10 defenses are bend-don't-break (some are, some aren't), and points out a qoute by suddenly defeatist Urban Meyer about getting comfortable with just two touchdowns a game to get a win (is this like a selling your soul proposition?).

For what it's worth, I think what USC has done on defense is fairly remarkable, given the slate of offenses they've faced and and the ridiculous turnover at cornerback so far (they've gone from Eric Wright, a future first rounder and his legal issues, to Terrell Thomas, a converted safety who blew out his knee, to John Walker, who isn't very good and now has a serious ankle injury, to Josh Pinkard, another converted safety, who is really good but had responsibilities at other positions in the defense).

As for the rest of the Pac-10 defenses, they're a mixed bag.  Looking at the offenses, this year has been particularly impressive, so naturally some of the defensive numbers are going to look really bad in a great offensive year in the Pac-10.  Honestly, it looks like bad timing because the defenses almost across the board are down due to graduation or natural regression after great years previous (see Cal and USC's defensive decline this year after fine seasons last year) at the same time as the offenses got good.  It's certainly not a fine year for defense out of this group, but USC does in fact have a fine defense, Cal may be able to fix itself in a few more games as the kids get a little more playing time and things slow down as they familiarize themselves with all the different offenses they've now seen.  I don't know what to say for Oregon State, they used to own a nationally elite defense but maybe coach Mike Riley gave that up (think the opposite of Urban Meyer, in Florida) in order to find himself an offense.

If that's true, we might have found something interesting in that a guy like Riley who ran great defenses adjusted to an offensive conference, lost his defense, and his teams went from top three in the conference, to the cellar.  Then you've got a guy like Urban Meyer with a great offense, quitting on it, adjusting to defensive conservative ball in the SEC and to some measure, succeeding.  Any thoughts on that?  I mean, on the surface, just looking at the small sample of these two guys, it suggests that just playing Pac-10 ball will not in fact, work, for a coach.  That in fact, you do have to maintain some kind of defensive command, whereas if you go into the SEC, simply playing their kind of ball gives you a shot.  Obviously this is a bit simplified and drawing from just one example, but it's interesting to consider.