Breaking down the Pac-12 teams by size: Stanford and USC biggest teams in the conference

Using depth charts heading into the season. Here are how the offensive and defensive (no special teams players) 2014 Pac-12 starters for each team stack up by average height and weight. Though the differences are rather slight, they do reveal a little bit about the difference and advantages of the different teams in the conference.

Height (In inches)

1. Stanford 74.9

Not surprising that the Cardinal are overall the biggest team in the conference. Stanford's focus on their lines is the easy reasoning for why they have a high weight, but being the longest team in the conference is also interesting and a lot of that actually comes from having tall receivers and a tall secondary in 2014.

2. Washington 74.76

Steve Sarkisian had a focus on getting his team longer while he was at Washington and it looks like he accomplished that. The Huskies are especially long along their offensive line where they don't have a starter under 6'3.

3. USC 74.67

Regardless of their struggles in recent seasons, the Trojans still might be the most talented team in the conference and talented teams are long. The Trojans are especially tall along their young, but ultra-talented offensive line that could turn into one of the best in the nation in time.

4. Oregon 74.63

I honestly thought that the Ducks might be the longest team in the conference, as a I know they have coveted length in recent history, but they come up a little bit short of that mark - literally. Like the Trojans and Huskies, the Ducks are very long on the offensive line.

5. Oregon State 74.17

6. Utah 74.05

7. Arizona State 74.04

8. UCLA 74

9. Colorado 73.99

10. Cal 73.95

Starts to make sense who is the bottom quarter as the Bears, Cougars and Wildcats all run air raid, and/or extremely up-tempo offense. These teams not only use lighter players, as you will see below, but also swap out an extra receiver for a tight end, losing a lot of inches in the process.

11. Washington State 73.72

12. Arizona 73.63

Weight (In pounds)

1. USC 250.68

I would have guessed that Stanford would be in the top spot, but the Trojans just edged them out. This is primarily coming from the Trojans' massive offensive line, but they are also pretty stout at just about every position across the board.

2. Stanford 249.72

Even if they aren't the heaviest team in the conference, the Cardinal are still huge across the board. They may have lost just a little bit of bulk up front on offense and defense, but they maintain their size by having great bulk at receiver and in the secondary.

3. Oregon State 246.76

It makes perfect sense that Oregon State and Utah join Stanford and USC at the top as they are the two lone non-elite holdouts of traditional offenses. The Beavers and Utes still have massive offensive lines when many other teams are trimming down but I wouldn't be surprised if both start heading towards a more up-tempo scheme very soon.

4. Utah 245.95

5. Washington 243.73

6. Arizona State 243.71

7. UCLA 243.45

8. Oregon 241.99

9. Colorado 236.81

10. Washington State 236.4

Interesting, but not surprising to see it again, the Cougars, Bears and Wildcats are the lightest teams in the conference with how fast and spread out of a scheme they all run. Pretty hard to run the offenses that they do with too much bulk and again, they swap out a tight end for an extra receiver.

11. Cal 234.72

12. Arizona 228.22