In a month, the Pac-12 will no longer exist in any recognizable form, with the 10 departing schools ending their membership in the century-old conference at the close of business on Aug. 1.
To mark the occasion and give our readers something to think about during the holiday week, Hotline has selected the best players in conference history: the All-Time All-Conference Team.
(Think of this as a supplemental article to each school's Mount Rushmore player profiles.)
Important Disclaimer:
- We only included players who played when their school was a member of the conference — for example, we didn't include University of Utah quarterback Alex Smith, who played for the school when it was in the Mountain West.
- Each position had more players selected than the starting 22.
- Performance in the NFL did not factor into our selection.
(Players are listed in alphabetical order by school)
attack
Quarterback: Oregon's Marcus Mariota, Stanford's Jim Plunkett, Stanford's John Elway and USC's Matt Leinart.
Running back: Ernie Nevers of Stanford, Marcus Allen of USC, Charles White of USC, and Hugh McElhenney of the University of Washington (O.J. Simpson was not considered).
Receiving machine: Oregon's Ahmad Rashad, Stanford's Ken Margerum, Southern California's Keyshawn Johnson and Washington's Reggie Williams.
Tight End: Todd Heap of Arizona State University and Tony Gonzales of the University of California
Tackle: Oregon's Penei Sewell, UCLA's Jonathan Ogden, USC's Anthony Munoz and USC's Ron Yary.
Security guard: Randall McDaniel of Arizona State University, Les Richter of University of California, Gary Zimmerman of University of Oregon, Brad Budde of University of Southern California, and Bruce Matthews of University of Southern California
Center: Tony Slaton of USC, Orrin Kreutz of Washington and Mel Hein of Washington State University.
All Purposes: Stanford's Christian McCaffrey, UCLA's Maurice Jones-Drew and USC's Reggie Bush
defense
end: Arizona's Tedy Bruschi, Arizona State's Terrell Suggs, California's Andre Carter, Stanford's Bill McCall and Washington's Steve Emtman.
Tackle: Arizona's Rob Waldrop, Oregon's Haloti Ngata, Oregon State's Steven Paea, Utah's Star Lotulelei and Washington State's Leanne Long.
Linebacker: Ricky Hanley of Arizona, Scooby Wright of Arizona, Vernon Maxwell of Arizona State, Jerry Robinson of UCLA, Junior Seau of USC, Chris Claiborne of USC, Richard Wood of USC
Cornerback: Arizona's Chris McAllister, Arizona's Daryl Lewis, Oregon's Mel Renfro, Oregon's Alex Molden, Oregon State's Jordan Poyer and UCLA's Carlton Gray.
Safety: Kenny Easley of UCLA, Ronnie Lott of USC, Mark Carrier of USC, Attorney Milloy of Washington, and Budda Baker of Washington.
Punters: Nick Harris of the University of California and Tom Hackett of the University of Utah
Kicker: Luis Zendejas of Arizona State University, John Lee of UCLA, and Jason Hanson of Washington State University
Returns Specialist: DeSean Jackson of California, D'Anthony Thomas of Oregon and Dante Pettis of Washington.
