* Cutting the Pac-10 some slack, sort of: The league is 10-10 in nonconference games this year. How might it stack up? The Pac-10 was 20-18 in 1999; the worst was 16-19-1 in 1983.
The Pac-10, though, has only two games scheduled this year against lower-level competition. The ACC has 14 -- every team except Wake Forest plays at least one. The Big Ten plays 10, and the Big 12 and SEC each play nine.
Three of the four major college schools that have never played a lower-level team are Pac-10 schools: USC, UCLA and Washington. Notre Dame is the other.
The Pac-10 has to play a tough nonconference schedule to overcome time-zone and east-of-the-Mississippi perception problems.
Sometimes you win big; sometimes you go 0-for-the-Mountain West.
* This year's list of 114 Harris poll panelists was released Wednesday and includes the likes of former SEC commissioner Roy Kramer, longtime Penn State assistant Jerry Sandusky, former NFL quarterback Boomer Esiason, and Kevin Duhe, whose participation once drew chuckles when it was learned he was a territory manager for Blue Bell Ice Cream. The Harris poll became part of the BCS standings formula in 2005 after AP pulled out. The AP still crowns an independent champion. The first Harris poll will be released Sept. 28. The first BCS standings will be released Oct. 12.
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chris.dufresne@latimes.com
