Even on vacation Rich Rod is promoting Arizona and PAC 12 football to Fox Sports.
"I think right now the Pac-12 is in the best place it's ever been," said Arizona coach Rich Rodriguez, who spoke at the Arians Family Foundation Georgia Celebrity Golf Classic in Greensboro, Ga. "There's more money being spent on the programs than there's ever been before, whether it's TV money or not.
Everybody has gotten better, and we have to. There's a lot of commitment being made to big-time college football. And as a league you're going to see the results of that in the fall."
Did Florida State's win on Jan. 6 open the door enough? Will that be the catalyst that sparks a shift in power?
"It's starting to," said Rodriguez, who believes everyone is still chasing the SEC, but the disparity isn't as great as it once was. "Not only Florida State's win, but I think some of the other bowl results, and some of the other things that happened throughout the country. The SEC has set the standard, certainly. With the type of football they play and the type of athletes that come out. But I would put us right now, with the Pac-12, I'd put us with just about anybody as far as our quality of league from top to bottom."
One of the benefits SEC schools have is that they're close to the recruiting hot beds of Florida, Texas, Georgia and the rest of the South. As you can see from the rankings, that advantage has been utilized fully. Rodriguez said he recruits the South heavily, but it's not easy to get Southern recruits to trek too far away from home.
"If we can get guys to visit, that's the key," Rodriguez said. "If we can get guys from this area (the South) to come out to the desert in Tucson, we've got a great shot to get them. And once we do that, it'll be a pipeline that keeps coming out West."