Throwback Thursday: All-Time Pac-12 NFL Team

How about an All-Time NFL Team made up of players from the Pac-12 in all of it's various forms through it's 100+ years? What we now know as the Pac-12 Conference started as the Pacific Coast Conference in 1915. The charter members were the University of California (Go Bears!), Washington, Oregon, and Oregon Agricultural College (now Oregon State). Washington State joined in 1916 and Stanford was finally allowed to come on board in 1918. USC and Idaho were added in 1922, Montana in 1924, and UCLA in 1928. 10 teams. The PCC continued with these 10 teams until Montana left to join the Mountain States Conference in 1950. The PCC was a nine-team conference until things went awry in 1959. The PCC disbanded after "pay-for-play" scandals at California, USC, UCLA, and Washington. From 1959-63, the four colleges that wrecked things for the PCC stuck together as the Athletic Association of Western Universities. Stanford soon joined the "baddies" to form what was popularly known as the Big-5. Washington State made it the Big-6 in 1962. When Oregon and Oregon State joined in 1964 the colleges unofficially became the Pacific-8 while still officially being the AAWU. The Pacific-8 Conference became official in 1968. Ten years later the Pac-8 became the Pac-10 with the addition of Arizona and Arizona State. That stood until 2010 when Utah and Colorado made it 12. A wacky college athletic history but probably no more wacky than most long-time conferences. There's a lot of politics that unfortunately goes into college athletics. Fortunately there's also a lot of great football and a lot of great football players have played at the assorted Pac-whatever colleges. Here are some of those football players.

Quarterback

John Elway, Stanford

Others: Troy Aikman (UCLA), Norm Van Brocklin (Oregon), Warren Moon (Washington), Aaron Rodgers (Cal)

Running backs

Ernie Nevers, Stanford
Marcus Allen, USC

Others: O.J. Simpson (USC), Frank Gifford (USC)

Receiver

James Lofton, Stanford
Tom Fears, UCLA

Other: Lynn Swann (USC)

Tight end

Tony Gonzalez, Cal

Other: Rob Gronkowski (Arizona)

Tackles

Anthony Munoz, USC
Jonathan Ogden, UCLA

Others: Ron Yary (USC), Gary Zimmerman, (Oregon), Ron Mix (USC)

Guards

Randall McDaniel, Arizona State

Bruce Matthews, USC

Other: Ed White (Cal)

Center

Mel Hein, Washington State

Other: Alex Mack (cal)

Defensive ends

Willie McGinest, USC

Terrell Suggs, Arizona State

Defensive tackles

Arnie Weinmeister, Washington

Curley Culp, Arizona State

Other: Keith Millard (Washington State), Haloti Ngata (Oregon)

Linebackers

Junior Seau, USC

Les Richter, Cal
Ken Norton Jr., UCLA

Others: Ken Harvey (Cal), Tedy Bruschi (Arizona), Jerry Robinson (UCLA)

Cornerbacks

Mike Haynes (Arizona State)
Jimmy Johnson (UCLA)

Other: Chris McAlister (Arizona)

Safeties

Ronnie Lott, USC
Kenny Easley, UCLA

Others: Troy Polamalu (USC), Joey Browner (USC), Willie Wood (USC)

Kicker

Jason Hanson, Washington State

Punter

Nick Harris, Cal

A few things. First of all, there are far too many Stanford and USC players. Second of all, it would've been nice to have a couple of Oregon players on this team. Linebacker Dave Wilcox and corner Mel Renfro played at Oregon right before the Ducks rejoined their conference friends in 1964. Wilcox would've been one of the three linebackers. Renfro would've been a very nice nickel corner. Third of all, this conference is stacked with talented safeties.