Yeah, they last played in the Rose Bowl in 1998.
They are very much like us. The ACC outside of Clemson hasn't been any better than the Pac 12. I am not insulting Pitt as much as I am insulting UCLA. UCLA used to be a fixture in the Rose Bowl along with USC.
I have no problem with your Pitt/UCLA comparison. That makes a lot of sense to me. However, I would take issue with the comment that the ACC and the Pac 12 have been the same because I don’t think that’s true at all. I think the ACC has been demonstrably better than the Pac 12 for several years now.
Within the past decade, Florida State has won the national championship. No Pac 12 team can say that. That’s two ACC teams who have won national championships within the past 10 years — One of them multiple times. Aside from the SEC, I’m not sure if anyone else can say that?
Again, this is not to suggest that the ACC has been great because it very clearly has not been all that hot. However, the Pac 12 has been the worst power conference for a number of years now and they’ve actually been helped in that regard by the fact that they play out west.
They always complain about their best teams and players being undervalued because of the fact that they play out west after most of the country has fallen asleep or tuned out for the evening.
They call it “East Coast Bias” end it is a real phenomenon. For example, a few years ago, Christian McCaffrey was definitely the best player in college football and he was cheated out of the Heisman Trophy because he played at Stanford rather than in the Big Ten or SEC.
However, the East Coast Bias door swings both ways and they have largely remained inoculated from much deserved criticism about how horribly they have performed for years now.
For example, anyone who saw that UCLA @ Cincinnati game the other night could see that UCLA is straight up atrocious. I have a very close friend who is a fanatical Bruins fan and he has been telling me how bad they are and I thought he was being too hard on them until I watch them play the other night. They absolutely suck and their quarterback is horrible.
Chip Kelly is 3–10 in his last 13 games at UCLA. He’s 11–33 overall in his past 44 games. And if you saw the Bruins play the other night, you would know that number is going to climb pretty dramatically this year.
They are not at Majors II depths by any means. They actually have some bonafide players on that team. However, I am having a very difficult time imagining that marriage ending well in Westwood.
