"Although the pre-season has a balance of one really good “A” caliber team (Boise State), one Big Ten “B level” team (Illinois, a 2-10 team last season), and one lower division “C” opponent, (Idaho State), they will be played in that order. Ideally you would want to play in reverse order and progressively improve along with the level of your opponent."
I stopped reading there.
That was a friggin disappointing season. Beating Ohio State and Miami in OOC games in the same season back then meant you had enough talent to compete for a conference title. Losing to USC always sucks, but it was downright embarrassing to lose to Oregon, Stanford and the Cougs that year. That was a clear sign that a change at the top would be needed.
Lambright should have been fired on the 50 yard line at the end of the
Apple Cup Oregon game.
I had always believed in Lambright until the Oregon game.
Damn that year sucked after beating Miami in Miami I thought
that team was headed towards a 10-1 season.
10-1? I don't know about that. WHOREgon (lol) did end up making the Rose Bowl that yr., and the Kooks made a bowl game as well. There wasn't top ten talent on that team. 9-2 would've been a very good year, and 8-3 seems about right.
'97 was the Lambo team that pissed me off. Going from a number 2 ranking to losing to Ryan Leaf and the Coogs to end up 7-4 made me want him fired.
Going into the year though Oregon wasn't though of as much though. I remember the sentiment was survive the first four games which UW did going 3-1 and the rest of the season sets up nicely.
Now as for 1997? That team with the right coach could have won the national title. That year they sent like 13 guys to the NFL. I think the 1994, 1996 and 1997 teams had more talent than the 2000 team who won the Rose Bowl.
1994 was a down year for the conference in general which made the 7-4 season after beating Ohio State and Miami even more frustrating. As you say, the start seemed to set the season up nicely. Starting out 5-1, a conference title was there for the taking.
Also agree that the '94, '96 and '97 teams had a ton of talent. With proper coaching, those teams really were capable of playing with anyone. Very frustrating era.
Agree in fact the Pac-10 from 1993-1999 was pretty shitty. Won only won Rose Bowl, typically didn't do well in bowl games or OOC games either.
Talking about 1994 our conference had no 10 game winners and every team in conference had 4+ losses but USC who was only 8-3-1. Oregon had lost to Hawaii and Utah that year.
WSU lost to Oregon State that year which back then was a terrible loss.
Stanford the other team UW lost to was 3-7-1. With their other wins being against San Jose State and Oregon State.
Miami was 10-2 finishing the year ranked 6th in the nation. They went 10-1 in the regular season before losing to #1 Nebraska 24-17.
Ohio State was 9-4 that year finishing #9 in the coaches. That 7-4 UW team defeated two top 10 teams and lost to #13 USC(end of season ranking) to start the year.
That team had the talent had they had the right coach could have gone 10-1.
