Up And Down The Coast, Pac-12 Lunch Links: Who Are College Football's Kings?

It's watch list season. The preseasons watch lists for the Maxwell and Bednarik Awards were released on Monday. The Rimington and Mackey on Tuesday. Today's it's the Groza and Guy Awards. Here is that and more:

• SI.com's Stewart Mandel revisits his "Program Pecking Order" Mailbag from 2007, which grouped teams from BCS conferences into four tiers: Kings, Barons, Knights and Peasants based on "cachet or aura." The updated list includes USC among the Kings, and other Pac-12 programs such as Colorado, Oregon, UCLA and Washington with the Barons. [SI.com]
• Brad Denny of SB Nation's Arizona State blog, House of Sparky, previews the Sun Devils' season opener against Northern Arizona on Aug. 30. [Pac-12.org]
• Seven Pac-12 standouts were named to the preseason watch lists for the Lou Groza Award, best kicker, and Ray Guy Award, best punter. [ESPN Pac-12 blog]
• Six players from the Pac-12 have been included on Athlon's preseason All-American first-team: USC's Matt Barkley and Robert Woods and Oregon's De'Anthony Thomas on offense; Utah's Star Lotulelei, USC's T.J. McDonald and Stanford's Chase Thomas on defense. [AthlonSports.com]
• Will California's Memorial Stadium be "game read?" [CalBears.com]
• A video game simulation based off EA Sports' NCAA Football '13 has USC winning the Pac-12 over North champion Washington by a score of 38-16 in the conference title game. [CBSSports.com]
• Get ready. The Washington State position previews are coming. [CougCenter]
• Mark Madsen is back at Stanford, enrolled in the business school and playing intramurals, too. [Wall Street Journal]

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