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Colorado coach Mike MacIntyre spent part of his childhood as a son of a Southeastern Conference head coach and even played two seasons for his father at Vanderbilt. His own coaching odyssey has included stops at Georgia and Mississippi.
So when MacIntyre compares the strengths of conferences, he has some credibility. Obviously, he's aiming to improve the perception of the work he's doing at Colorado when he says this, but he believes it: "We're in the toughest division in college football — period."
That's an awfully strong statement about the Pac-12 South, considering the status of the SEC West. MacIntyre points to five of the six Pac-12 South members being ranked in the AP Top 25, compared with four of the seven schools in the SEC West. He also cites "better quarterbacks" as one of his criteria.
That part is true, and nobody could dismiss the entertainment value of several divisional games in the Pac-12 South that have come down to dramatic finishes. MacIntyre's Buffaloes were even involved in one of them, a double-overtime loss to UCLA.
Yet to rank the Pac-12 South as college football's best division is a stretch — partly because of Colorado's presence, despite the Buffs' improvement, and mostly because of the one-through-seven strength of the SEC West.
Full disclosure: My brother and two nephews are involved in an SEC West football program (LSU), with place-kick holder being the most visible role. But as impressive as it is to have five Pac-South teams in the rankings, other sets of numbers strongly endorse the SEC West.
ESPN's Football Power Index lists all seven of those schools in the top 19, with only UCLA (No. 13) and USC (No. 15) ahead of any of them. Arizona (No. 26), Utah (No. 28) and Arizona State (No. 29) follow.
The Sagarin Ratings are similar, with the seven SEC West teams all 23rd or higher, ahead of Utah (No. 24) and Arizona (No. 34). Five teams from the SEC West, including 7-4 LSU, are above UCLA.
That's a little weird, certainly. And when Utah is the fifth-place team in the Pac-12 South, that's a strong selling point for the division.
With two weeks remaining in the regular season, five teams have at least a reasonable mathematical chance of representing the South in the Pac-12 championship game. UCLA coach Jim Mora last month predicted "mayhem" in the division, and he was prescient.
"I think it's great for the conference," Mora said Tuesday. "I hope that people around the country recognize the quality of football in the Pac-12, especially the Pac-12 South. … I hope that people understand that these aren't bad teams knocking each other off."
Mora's Bruins have played their way back into the race, after losing to Utah and Oregon. They unimpressively beat California and Colorado, but have been sharper in wins over Arizona and Washington. UCLA is the only South team that controls its destiny, facing USC and Stanford. If the Bruins lose one of those games, everybody else could be in play.
Remaining intra-divisional games include USC-UCLA, Utah-Arizona and Arizona-Arizona State. The South already has produced some wild finishes, including ASU's Hail Mary vs. USC, Arizona's missed field goal vs. USC, ASU's overtime defeat of Utah and the Utes' two-point, last-minute win over UCLA.
Undoubtedly, there's more mayhem to come in college football's second-best division.
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