UW Football
Football in Northwest: Fallen four or a cycle?

By Bob Condotta
Seattle Times staff reporter

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Four years ago last weekend, Washington and Oregon State played the game of the season in the Pac-10, a 33-30 UW win at Husky Stadium that was as exciting as its score would indicate. A contest that not only ended up deciding the Pac-10 championship, but also held national-title implications.

Saturday, the two teams meet again in a matchup so lacking in luster that no TV network wants to televise it.

And that may indicate as clearly as anything else how college football in the Northwest has fallen since that marvelous 2000 season, when UW, Oregon State and Oregon all won bowl games, all finished with 10 wins or more, and all finished in the top 10 in the nation.

"We were really the talk of the country," said Oregon athletic director Bill Moos a few months after the 2000 season ended.

Now they are lucky to be the talk of the county.

Of the four Northwest schools, only Washington State (3-2) has a winning record.

Four years after the four teams went a combined 36-11 for the season, they are 7-13 at the midway point.

FACTS The Northwest since 2000 The 2000 season was a watershed moment for college football in the Northwest with three teams: Washington, Oregon and Oregon State each finishing the season ranked among the top 10 in the country. Here's a look at how the Northwest teams have fared since then: Washington 2000: 11-1, won Rose Bowl, finished No. 3 in final AP poll 2001: 8-4, lost Holiday Bowl, No. 19 in final AP poll 2002: 7-6, lost Sun Bowl, unranked 2003: 6-6, no bowl, unranked 2004: 1-4 Washington State 2000: 4-7, no bowl, unranked 2001: 10-2, won Sun Bowl, No. 10 in final AP poll 2002: 10-3, lost Rose Bowl, No. 10 in final AP poll 2003: 10-3, won Holiday Bowl, No. 9 in final AP poll 2004: 3-2 Oregon 2000: 10-2, won Holiday Bowl, No. 7 in final AP poll 2001: 11-1, won Fiesta Bowl, No. 2 in final AP poll 2002: 7-6, lost Seattle Bowl, unranked 2003: 8-5, lost Sun Bowl, unranked 2004: 2-3 Oregon State 2000: 11-1, won Fiesta Bowl, No. 4 in final AP poll 2001: 5-6, no bowl, unranked 2002: 8-5, lost Insight Bowl, unranked 2003: 8-5, won Las Vegas Bowl, unranked 2004: 1-4

Four years after UW played in the Rose Bowl, Oregon State in the Fiesta and Oregon beat Texas in the Holiday, getting a berth in the Las Vegas or Insight bowls will qualify as a successful season for any of the bunch.

And four years after the power in the Pac-10 had seemed to shift to the North — all four California schools were slogging through nonwinning seasons at the same time — conference supremacy again appears to be the domain of the south.

What in the names of Joey Harrington, Marques Tuiasosopo and Jonathan Smith happened?

Reality, maybe.

"(The 2000 season) was an aberration," said Allen Wallace, the publisher of SuperPrep magazine and the national recruiting coordinator for Scout.com. "All the stars have to be aligned perfectly for something like that to happen. It certainly was an anomaly."

Now, the top three teams in the Pac-10 standings are Arizona State, USC and UCLA, with Cal looming as the only other legitimate contender.

And the question is whether this season's dropoff is as much of an aberration as was 2000's success.

Predictably, those in the Northwest say yes.

Oregon's Mike Bellotti, when asked if success like the school had in 2000 and 2001 can be accomplished consistently said, "Obviously we would like to think so. We always plan and work toward that."

Still, some wonder.

When the Northwest had success early in the decade, many pointed to the enhanced facilities, particularly at Oregon, as a major reason in attracting top-flight recruits that in turn led to on-field success. That spurred some of the southern schools, notably Arizona State, to build their own new football offices, weight rooms, etc., to narrow that gap.

In essence, advantages in coaching and facilities that the Northwest had on some of the southern schools may not be there anymore.

But Wallace said he doesn't think USC's return to prominence necessarily precludes another Northwest power grab.

He says even in its down times, USC was getting the recruits it wanted and isn't really stealing recruits from the Northwest schools now, saying the players the Trojans are getting aren't players who would otherwise end up at Oregon or Washington.

Wallace says his publication's recruiting rankings for the Northwest schools aren't much different now than they were six, seven, or eight years ago when those schools signed the players who led them to greatness earlier in the decade.

Indeed, the rise of each school was mostly solitary in nature, as are their current problems.

Washington has endured a messy coaching change and other upheaval, resulting in one of its youngest teams ever. Still, Wallace says, "It's hard to understand why that program looks so bad right now. ... They have to decide who the coach is for the future, and the players have to decide who the coach is for the future."

Oregon State also weathered a coaching change from Dennis Erickson back to Mike Riley and has stumbled against what has been rated as the toughest schedule in the country. Some in Corvallis wonder whether Erickson's reliance on junior-college transfers left holes in recruiting that are now being exposed.

WSU has also had a coaching change, though the Cougars appeared to suffer little dropoff in the transition from Mike Price to Bill Doba. They are suffering this year mostly with the loss of a slew of seniors from last year's 10-win team. And in fairness to the Cougars, they probably don't deserve mention in this story with a 33-10 record since the 2001 season that is still better than any other team in the conference except USC.

Oregon is the one school that has had no turnover at the top, though the loss of assistants such as Jeff Tedford, who quickly turned Cal into a power, has surely had some impact. The Ducks are just 11-14 since the midpoint of the 2002 season.

Bellotti points out that it's easier for schools in major metropolitan areas to stay at the top.

"College football is a function of recruiting, and recruiting is a function of population," he said. "Three of the four schools in the Northwest do not have tremendous areas of population around them so they have to go outside and that makes it a little bit tougher."

Indeed, Oregon's rise in 2000 was powered by Harrington and other players, such as running back Maurice Morris, who were as good at their position as any in the history of the school, players that would be hard for any program to easily replace.

Washington, meanwhile, had a senior QB regarded as maybe the best in school history in Tuiasosopo. And Oregon State relied on an unorthodox mix heavy on overachievers (Smith, Ken Simonton) and JC transfers.

"You saw some real experienced teams around Corvallis, Eugene, Pullman and Seattle, and now you see less experienced teams," said UW coach Keith Gilbertson. "And as a result we are not as successful. But that doesn't mean we will always stay that way. We will be back up."

Indeed, who would have guessed in 1996, when only UW of the four Northwest schools finished with a winning conference record, that the region would rule?

"The good thing about down cycles is that they are usually temporary and usually provide a springboard for the future," Wallace said. "There is always a regrouping and redefining and sometimes a reestablishing of personnel or coaching that will change the future."

So while you're propping your eyes open to stay awake Saturday, just remember that 2008 isn't that far away.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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