USC has one conference title since 2009, hasn't made the College Football Playoff and has been led by four different head coaches in the last 10 season. Still, it's the best head-coaching job in the Pac-12, according to current and former Pac-12 coaches.
Jon Wilner of The Mercury News sought an answer to this question: What are the best coaching jobs in the Pac-12? He asked nine current and former Pac-12 assistant coaches and head coaches to rank the 12 jobs in the conference based on whatever criteria they believe make a job attractive (or unattractive).
USC dominated the results, earning eight of nine first-place votes (the ninth picked USC third), followed by Washington, who received the other first-place vote. No coached ranked USC or Washington worse than third. Oregon State was the only program ranked in the same spot by all nine coaches: 12th.
Here are the full results (and some interesting anonymous comments from the coaches):
Points were allotted in reverse order, 12 for first, 11 for second, etc.
| Rank | Team | Total Points | Highest | Lowest |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | USC | 106 | 1st | 3rd |
| 2 | Washington | 96 | 1st | 3rd |
| 3 | Stanford | 83 | 2nd | 4th |
| 4 | Oregon | 81 | 3rd | 5th |
| 5 | UCLA | 80 | 2nd | 6th |
| 6 | Arizona State | 63 | 5th | 7th |
| 7 | Colorado | 45 | 5th | 10th |
| 8 | Utah | 43 | 7th | 9th |
| 9 | Cal | 39 | 6th | 11th |
| 10 | Arizona | 32 | 8th | 11th |
| 11 | Washington State | 25 | 9th | 11th |
| 12 | Oregon State | 9 | 12th | 12th |
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