The Wall Street Journal did a study of how each coach in the power football conferences (plus Notre Dame) has done when his team played a top-25 team. Here is the article.
The study broke the results down by overall record and record at the coach's current school. The theory here apparently is that a coach who worked his way up at a pattycake school could be unfairly penalized by his record at that school. That is not the case, however, for Pac-12 coaches. So we will concentrate on the overall record.
Here are the Pac-12 coaches, in order of winning percentage-
David Shaw 14-4 (all at Stanford)
Chris Peterson 8-4 (all at Boise St, coming up on 1st year at Washington)
Mark Helfrich 2-1 (all in his 1st season last year at Oregon)
Jim Mora 5-5 (all at UCLA)
Kyle Whittingham 9-13 (all at Utah)
Rich Rodriguez 16-26 (3-7 at Arizona, did relatively better at West Virginia and presumably worse at Michigan)
Todd Graham 6-12 (3-5 at Arizona State, did relatively worse on his way up at Tulsa)
Steve Sarkisia 8-18 (all at Washington, looking to duplicate his mediocrity or worse at $C)
Mike Leach 13-38 (1-7 in two years at Washington St, 12-31 at Texas Tech)
Mike Riley 13-39 (all at Oregon St)
Sonny Dykes 0-9 (0-5 last year at Cal, 0-4 at Louisiana Tech)
Mike MacIntyre 0-10 (0-3 last year at Colorado, 0-7 at San Jose St)
I don't think this shows who is the best coach in the Pac-12. I would argue, for example, that David Shaw inherited some horses and his conservative style of play has cost the Cardinal in big games, particularly in last year's Rose Bowl. But his teams have beaten the Bruins and the Ducks with regularity.
Jim Mora shows up as average against top competition. That puts him ahead of most conference coaches, but not in the same league as Shaw and Peterson. And the most refreshing point is that Mora seems to agree that there is plenty of unfinished business, and that he is not satisfied to be a .500 coach against the best.
Here, from an ESPN article after Pac-12 media day, is Mora's assessment-
"Our success right now in my opinion is still very limited," Mora said. "We haven't won the Pac-12 Championship. We're 0-3 against Stanford. I don't want our players to feel like we're extra special and we've accomplished the goals we've set out to accomplish or that, but we're on the right track."
This is so refreshing, particularly in comparison to TIARA and Doughnut, who tout a Sweet-16 as "Mission Accomplished".
Coach Jim Mora definitely has the program headed in the right direction, but there is work to be done.
Go Bruins !!