Solid football season helps Pac-10 answer critics

With his conference gaining respect around the country as a football power, Pac-10 commissioner Tom Hansen is finding the job he has held since 1983 to be as fun as ever. The 69-year-old recently spoke with Tribune writer Dan Zeiger about the Pac-10 season, the league’s television and bowl arrangements, officiating and (very briefly) expansion:

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Q: The Pac-10 has four schools in the Bowl Championship Series rankings (No. 4 Arizona State, No. 5 Oregon, No. 12 Southern California and No. 21 California) and is considered up there with the SEC as the best league in the nation. How rewarding has that recognition been?

A: Very rewarding. While it’s all subjective and fun to argue about, you never really know because you can’t match an entire conference against another. But we feel, and I know our coaches feel, that we’re as good as anyone out there. We’ve had some good nonconference wins.

You mentioned four teams, but don’t forget that UCLA is undefeated in league play.

It’s had those two unfortunate nonconference losses (against Utah and Notre Dame). It’s been a solid year, and I think we’ll continue to do well.

Q: Do you feel the Pac-10 has answered some critics? Not everyone would have put it the way (Louisiana State coach) Les Miles did in his oft-reported comments during the offseason, but many observers around the country felt the same way.

A: We have an outstanding nonconference record (22-8) against some good teams. Our schools seek good opponents, and wins like Oregon over Michigan, USC over Nebraska, Washington over Boise State and Arizona State over Colorado are handsome wins.

Les Miles said that USC had an easy time in the conference, but the record belies that. The only nonconference game that USC has lost over the years was against Texas (in the 2006 Rose Bowl for the national title). I don’t think Les checked the record as closely as he could have.

Q: It’s possible the Pac-10 could get two teams in the BCS. However, if that does not happen, the best the second-place team can do is the Holiday Bowl on Dec. 27. That’s a nice bowl, but doesn’t the conference’s No. 2 team deserve to be playing somewhere on New Year’s Day?

A: If you’re not playing in the Rose Bowl or the BCS game that night, you’re kicking off at 11 a.m. in the morning (Eastern time). That’s 8 a.m. on the West Coast, where we are. I’m not sure that’s a great reward for your No. 2 team to be playing that early on any morning.

Also, there are four games in that time slot, which limits your exposure. Playing in a second BCS game would solve that problem, but if you can’t, the Holiday Bowl is a great bowl. So is the Sun Bowl. I know a lot of people roll their eyes about El Paso, but for the players, the bowl does a great job of giving them as good of an experience as they can have.

We like where we are with our bowls right now.

Q: Your television agreements were tweaked slightly this year, with ESPN coming on board with ABC and Fox Sports Net. Are you pleased with how that arrangement is working?

A: Very much so. We’ve increased our exposure from 16 to 20 football appearances on ABC/ESPN, and the relationship with FSN continues to be important to us. Our contract with Fox Sports Net in men’s basketball runs through the 2011-12 season, and FSN sold a couple of games to ESPN for this season.

I get asked a lot why we aren’t on ESPN for basketball, and frankly, with all of the commitments ESPN has for basketball elsewhere, they don’t want a lot more of it.

And they haven’t made us an attractive offer when our rights have come up.

We’re happy with FSN, which has given exposure and income to all of the teams in our conference, not just those at the top at any given time.

Q: How closely is the Pac-10 paying attention to what the Big Ten and Mountain West conferences are doing with their own networks?

A: We’re not surprised at the struggles they are having, because it is basic to the industry. New sports channels are having battles getting on many of the cable carriers.

We’ve talked about some aspect of a channel, but our schools are preferring to keep the rights to the Olympic sports themselves and utilize them in their own packages, particularly on their Web sites. A network would be a monumental undertaking, and the jury is still out on how successful the other conferences will be.

Q: I spoke with you last year about the potential for Pac-10 expansion, and you told me, “Not only is it not on the back burner, it’s not on the stove.” Has anything changed since then?

A: Nothing has changed.

Q: Perception-wise, at least, it has been a bad couple of years for football officiating in the Pac-10. There was the onside-kick replay blunder at Oregon last year, and this season, a newspaper poll of coaches around the country rated Pac-10 officiating as the worst.

A: I don’t agree with the perception that our officiating is inferior to anyone else’s. We had the one horrible play in the Oklahoma-Oregon game, and we took strong action and response. We’re always striving to raise the level of game officiating. We have done more communicating and video work with our referees, and we’re part of working toward a more uniform application of the rules and mechanics of officiating among all of the Division I conferences.

I think the poll reflected that one Oregon game. We’ve had good work on the field this year. There have been 11 coaches challenges, and all but one have been upheld. And there have been 12 reversals total in 41 games. So, we’re getting it right in the first place, and when we don’t, we’ve corrected it.

Q: How much longer do you plan to be on the job?

A: I’ll have been doing this for 25 years in February. It won’t be too much longer than that.