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By Kevin Clerici
Arizona Daily Wildcat
August 28, 1996
With Southern Cal suffering a 24-7 defeat to Penn State in the Kickoff Classic Sunday, the rest of the teams in the conference better beware of also falling victim to tough nonconference foes.For UCLA it won't be easy. The Bruins start their season with three tough road trips - at Tennessee on Sept. 7 and Michigan and Oregon - in the first four weeks of the season. New head coach Bob Toledo and his crew will have to play in the two largest stadiums in the nation - Tennessee's newly enlarged 102,485-seat Neyland Stadium and Michigan Stadium, which seats 102,501. Nine of UCLA's 11 opponents have received votes in the preseason polls.
California has been plagued with a bad start in the last two seasons, dropping its first two games each year. This season the Bears open at San Jose State and then are at home against San Diego State.
Washington enters the 1996 season with the nation's second-longest string of consecutive winning seasons with 19. Nebraska's 33 is the longest in Division I. To put this in perspective, the next closest Pacific 10 Conference teams are Arizona and Southern Cal, both with four. Washington's 36-11-1 conference-game record since 1990 is tops so far this decade among Pac-10 schools.
With 67,000 season tickets sold, the Huskies have sold more season tickets than the professional Seattle Mariners, Seahawks and Supersonics combined.
There will be no shortage of Pac-10 football action on television in 1996. ABC continues as the primary carrier of the Pac-10 and Big Ten conferences. ABC will air 15 consecutive weeks (Aug. 25-Nov. 30) of Pac-10 action ending with the Rose Bowl telecast on New Year's Day.
The Prime Sports network, soon to be called the Fox Sports Net, will present two packages of Pac-10 football - one over cable outlets and the other through over-the-air syndication. The Arizona at Iowa game Sept. 7 will be televised locally by ESPN at 9:30 a.m.
The Sept. 14 Wildcat matchup with Illinois will be aired by the Fox network at 7 p.m., Tucson time.
Arizona State is tops in the Pac-10 with 19 returning starters and is the only team that has returning players from the 1995 All-Pac-10 offensive team. Senior quarterback Jake Plummer, wide receiver Keith Poole and offensive lineman Juan Roque lead a potent offense that gets its first test Sept. 7 against Washington in Tempe.
ASU's No. 20 ranking in The Associated Press preseason poll was the first time the Sun Devils have been ranked in the preseason since 1987, when they were coming off a Rose Bowl win.
California is second with 16 starters returning. New head coach Steve Mariucci left his position as the quarterbacks coach with the Green Bay Packers after last year's NFC title game. During his four-year stint with the Packers, the offense totaled more than 20,000 yards with quarterback Brett Favre taking home last year's MVP.
Akili King, a transfer student from the Army to Oregon State this fall, is still trying to adjust to civilian life.
"No formation, lights out or uniforms. I'm still having a hard time dealing with all the free time," King said.
Oregon State was picked to finish last in the Pac-10 this season according to the preseason media poll. However, the Beavers should take heart that being in that situation has some favorable bowl history. Last season, Stanford was picked to finish on the bottom and went on to win seven games, earning a berth in the St. Jude Liberty Bowl. In 1994, Washington State was predicted last and went to the Builder's Square Alamo Bowl.
The Cougars' last three bowl appearances have come on even numbered years -Aloha in 1988, Copper in 1992 and Alamo in 1994. Head coach Mike Price is the only coach in Washington State history to lead the team to two bowl games ('92 Copper and '94 Alamo). Cougars quarterback Ryan Leaf, a 6-foot-5 sophomore, is already drawing comparisons to Drew Bledsoe, the NFL's top pick in the 1992 draft.
"I think a lot of Cougar fans smile when they see Ryan Leaf run out on the field," Price said. "I do."
Cougar fans will get their first chance to see if Leaf can live up to his predecessor Saturday when Washington State travels to Boulder to face fifth-ranked Colorado.
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