Pac-10 on campaign trail

Larry Scott lived in Southeastern Conference territory when he ran the Women's Tennis Association, so he watched SEC football coaches talk each season about the difficulty of making it through the league unscathed.

He saw how vocally building up the conference affected nationwide opinion, and SEC schools won the past three national championships despite not being undefeated.

The Pacific-10 Conference has a much softer reputation, and last season proved a Southern California loss at Oregon State was more damaging in the minds of poll voters than a Florida home defeat to Mississippi.

Now commissioner of the Pac-10, Scott has emphasized not only playing a good game but talking one, too. And coaches certainly did at Pac-10 media day this week, not waiting until late November to hit the Bowl Championship Series campaign trail.

"Year in and year out, without question, our most difficult games, not just one game, but many games, come right from our own conference opponents," said USC coach Pete Carroll, according to ESPN.com. "I know that we've only lost a few games out of conference through the years, but we've lost a bunch of games to conference opponents. I think it's the best conference in the country."

OK, really, the SEC is the best, but the Pac-10 isn't far behind.

The test comes in the fall when opinions matter most.

• CHECK'S STILL IN THE MAIL? -- Hard to believe now with the Gladiators long gone from Las Vegas and with the apparent demise of the Arena Football League, but Clint Dolezel was a popular local sports figure when he quarterbacked here.

Now he's the offensive coordinator of the Florida Firecats, who appeared headed for the af2 playoffs but were barred from participating because they failed to pay more than $200,000 in dues.

Dolezel told the Fort Myers (Fla.) News-Press that the situation embarrassed him.

"I hope it's embarrassing for ownership as well," Dolezel said. "We'd see (team president) Chris (Vallozzi) at all the home games all gung-ho about wanting to win, but I guess he didn't want to win bad enough to pay the bills and get into the playoffs."

Don't mention "Gladiators" and "bills" to some Las Vegans.

• THE JOKE'S ON WHO? -- You know you're in bad shape if the Washington Nationals are making fun of you.

Nyjer Morgan and Sean Burnett, who used to be with the Pittsburgh Pirates, criticized their old club for aggressively trading players.

"It's funny, but Nyjer and I knew this was going to happen," Burnett told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "They're the laughingstock of baseball right now. They've gotten rid of everybody."

Maybe Burnett should keep some perspective. The Nationals had a winning percent of .314 and were 27 games out of first place before Friday. Pittsburgh was .426 and 111/2 out.

It would be like someone from the Detroit Lions last season bragging they weren't in Cleveland.

COMPILED BY MARK ANDERSON LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL