Pac-12 Football Championship Game

Fall is here and football is in full swing. And as if I'm not excited enough for college football every week, I now see a commercial for the Pac-12 Football Championship Game.

I can't wait!

New PAC 10 logo

The PAC 10 is gaining momentum across the nation. To help with their goal of not being overshadowed by the East coast schools the PAC 10 added two more schools and almost caused the destruction of the Big 12.

Once Colorado and Utah join, the Conference announced the name will change to the PAC 12.
And sticking with the theme of change, the PAC 10 unveiled a new logo.

Here's the old logo:


And the new:

What do you think about the change? I really like it. The new logo is crisp and sharp. It features the mountains of the northwest, the ocean waves of the coast and the desert sun. Pretty sweet.

Also what's pretty sweet is that it's almost football season. Check out this preview for PAC 10 football.

Pac-10 Domination

The Pac-10 has won many championships in many sports over the years. They have also been dominant in some sports at certain times in the past. You can look to the 6 baseball championships they won in the 60's (3 each by the USC Trojans and Arizona State Sun Devils), and then again in the 70's when USC won 5 straight from 1970 to 1974 (as well as another in 1978, also with the Arizona Wildcats winning back to back in 76-77). Of course there was Men's basketball in the 60's and 70's with the UCLA Bruins winning 10 championships from the 1963-64 season to the 1974-75 season.

None of those stretches of dominance can measure up to how dominate Softball has been in the Pac-10. The first Women's College World Series was held in 1982 and was won by UCLA over Fresno State. The Pac-10 has actually won 21 of the 27 Softball World Series that have been held, even winning 10 in a row from 1988 through 1997. Even in 1995 when UCLA won and the championship was vacated by the NCAA Committee on Infractions, Arizona was right there to pick up the title since they were the runner up. Actually of the 54 possible contestants in the 27 years of the Championship Series final, the Pac-10 has had 36 teams represent the conference. There has been only two years that the Pac-10 didn't have a team in the Championship Series and that was 1983 and 1986. Eleven times the Championship Series has featured both teams from the Pac-10!

Now if that isn't dominance then I don't know what is, and if you don't think Women's softball is tough feel free to step into the batters box and try to hit a pitch coming at you between 60-70 miles an hour from 43 feet away.

Oh yeah, lets hope that the Pac-10 can add a 22nd title this year by way of the Washington Huskies. Go Lady Dawgs!!

Washington Huskies Weekly Update: Tucson, Tempe Split

The Washington Huskies salvaged a split on the first half of there 4 game Pac-10 road trip. On Thursday night the Dawgs were in Tucson taking on the Arizona Wildcats and were ahead 38-37 at halftime. The second half turned out to be a free throw bonanza for the Wildcats as they went 34 of 40 from the charity stripe and beat the Huskies 106-97. With the loss Washington falls to 6-2 in the Pac-10 and back into a tie with the UCLA Bruins. The Huskies will surely be looking for revenge when they host the Wildcats on February 28th.

On Saturday the Huskies went into the home of the Arizona State Sun Devils and left with an 84-71 victory. They held the Pac-10's leading scorer James Harden to 15 points which is about 7 points below his average (22.2) and scored 41 in the first half which is the most points the Sun Devils had given up in the first half all season. With UCLA winning also, the Huskies remain in a tie with the Bruins for first in the Pac-10.

The biggest story of this game (other than locking down Harden) was the continued great scoring output by Justin Dentmon. Love him or hate him it is hard to argue his offensive production over the last 7 games. Dentmon has averaged 21.4 points per games over his last 7 games, up from the 12.5 points a game he averaged over the teams first 14 games.

Couple Dentmon with the solid play of Jon Brockman (15.6 points and 10.9 rebounds per game) and Isaiah Thomas (16.7 points per game) and the Huskies are looking like a tough tournament team. A welcome ray of sunshine in this gloomy and dark Seattle sports (and weather) world.

No time for the Dawgs to bask in glow of the victory on Saturday as they head to Berkeley for a date with the California Golden Bears on Thursday (2/5) and then to Palo Alto to tangle with the Stanford Cardinal on Sunday (2/8).

Additionally on the docket this week for the Huskies football team is National Signing Day, which is right up there with the opening Thursday and Friday games of the NCAA Tournament in March as my favorite days of the year. Look for a breakdown of UW's incoming recruiting class on Wednesday the 4th once the recruits start sending in there letters of intent.