Happy Friday. Welcome to the mailbag.

You can communicate with me via tedmillerespn@gmail.com or via Twitter by clicking here.

Pac-12 media days are just over a month away. So, yeah, 2015 season is getting closer.

To the notes!

Daisy from Addicted to Quack writes: Poor Mark "Yeahbut" Helfrich. The guy goes to the first CFB playoff, annihilates the reigning champions, gets his team to the national championship game, and everyone is like "Yeahbut! He may have kept things going without Chip Kelly, but he can't win without Marcus Mariota!" Personally I think the most impressive thing that Helfrich has done in his admittedly short tenure is not getting Oregon to the national championship game, but rather the turn around he and his coaches orchestrated after the 2014 loss to Arizona. That was a pretty darn low point, and things seemed quite grim with the OL basically a MASH unit. I think he learned from his experience in 2013 and employed some seriously world-class coaching in late October of last year to turn the season back around.

I'm not pulling the "no respect" card, because I do think Helfrich is respected in a rather lukewarm way and he does need to continue to do his job well. But I am surprised at say, the automatic respect given 7-win Sark (OK, so he has graduated to 8.5-win Sark, but I'm sorry to lose the alliteration) and the seemingly unfounded confidence people have in his ability to get USC to the playoffs. There seems to be the same confidence that Chris Petersen will get UW back to the promised land (shoot me now), yet there is this pervading skepticism about Helfrich's abilities. What do you think is at the root of this apparent incongruity? Is it his nice guy personality? Has he shown some deficiency in coaching abilities that might not be apparent to the armchair viewer? Or am I just another paranoid Duck fan and everyone on the planet really loves him as much as we do (now) in Oregon?

Ted Miller: Very good point about the Arizona game. While some don't remember the handwringing on Oct. 5, it was substantial. Lots of "I know Chip Kelly, and Mark Helfrich, you're no Chip Kelly!" But Helfrich and his staff kept sawing wood, kept their locker room together, figured some things out in terms of personnel and scheme and nearly won a national title.

In fact, when you look at the Ducks injury/suspension woes in advance of the meeting with Ohio State, it's pretty stunning. Without qualification, it was a great coaching job, one that Helfrich shares with an outstanding staff. And that guy who played QB. He was pretty solid.

Yet a college football coach doesn't ever truly arrive this day and age. There is no tenure or lifetime appointments. Urban Meyer and Nick Saban? See what happens if they go 8-4 and 7-5 in consecutive years with a few off-field issues. The pressure is always there and just about every coach must deal with the "what have you done for me lately?" response from boosters. Helfrich vindicated himself this season. That's a consensus opinion. But the Ducks at 8-4 this December would provoke the handwringing again.

As for Steve Sarkisian, it's an apples-and-oranges comparison. The Washington team he took over after an 0-12 2008 season under Tyrone Willingham was in disarray, nothing like the Ducks in 2013 when Kelly bolted for the NFL. Sure, the Huskies never took the proverbial "next step" under Sarkisian, nor did he and the Trojans accomplish much last year. Sarkisian still awaits his signature season, though more than a few folks are projecting it for this fall. We shall see.

Petersen, too, has to prove himself at Washington. The Huskies might struggle this year, and if they end up with a losing record the narrative will begin that Petersen was great at Boise State but was not prepared for the grind of the Pac-12. Fan and media analysis in college football is most often severely nearsighted. Again, we shall see.

As for Helfrich getting short-sheeted in comparisons to these guys, yes, you are being "another paranoid Duck fan." The media consensus with all three seems to be pretty fair and accurate. Petersen has his track record at Boise State, which is brilliant, but Washington is a much bigger operation. Sarkisian is a good recruiter who did a good but not great job at Washington who has a lot to prove at USC. Helfrich followed a slightly disappointing first season with a fantastic year two.

Six months from now, one, two or all three of those takes is certain to be different, sliding up or down an evaluative scale based on a larger coaching sample size.

What I most like about Helfrich is he is pretty much exactly the same as he was when he was Kelly's offensive coordinator. He's still a wisecracking guy who doesn't take himself too seriously away from the field, but he's also a creative, competitive, perfectionist who is fully attuned to the "Win the Day" mentality that made Oregon into what it is today.

Jago from Phoenix writes: You wrote that Arizona State is the contrarian pick to win the South and that Utah was the most undervalued team in the Pac12. What about the defending South champs, who beat both of these teams, including Utah by 32 points?

Ted Miller: For the entire gaggle of ESPN.com writers, I want to apologize in advance for the likelihood that when analyzing the super-duper-deep Pac-12 South Division, we are going to sometimes fall short coming up with a fair distribution of flowery descriptions.

Is USC or UCLA officially the favorite? Who should don the black T-shirt of the stately "dark horse?" Or become the hip "contrarian pick?" Who's got the most super-secret answers to lunkheaded media questions? Who's the most underrated? Who's best in show? Most congenial? Looks best in a speedo? Sparkliest?

I get it. Arizona won the South last year, welcomes back all its top skill players as well as the conference's best defensive player in Scooby Wright. Yet it does seem the general media tilt is that someone else will win the division this fall.

The questions for the Wildcats are fairly obvious. They are replacing three starters on their O-line -- tackles who were four-year starters and underrated center Steven Gurrola -- and are rebuilding a secondary that will be fronted by a D-line again lacking impact players. Further, Arizona played its worst ball of the season in the final two games, getting gutted by Oregon in the Pac-12 title game and inspiring all Pac-12 fans to scratch their eyes out during a horrific performance against Boise State in the Fiesta Bowl.

While the idea of coach Rich Rodriguez getting a second year with a QB for the first time since he arrived in Tucson is intriguing, there also is an undercurrent of uncertainty with Anu Solomon, who flagged late in the season, something that Solomon readily admits and wouldn't himself write off to an accumulation of injuries.

Here's the thing, though: The Wildcats looked pretty salty this spring. Solomon seemed much more comfortable fronting the team -- he's definitely more at ease chatting with reporters -- and the offensive line and secondary, while less experienced, will be more physically talented this fall.

When you throw in the Rich Rod/Jeff Casteel coaching factor, Arizona might not only win the South, it could win the Pac-12, which could mean all sorts of fancy possibilities.

That said, I think I could make a pretty good case for five South teams winning the conference. At some point soon, I -- and our other ESPN.com friends -- will have to go on record with our projections for the 2015 pecking order. Yet it won't surprise me in the least if the team I pick fifth ends up nipping the team I pegged at No. 4 for the title in December.

Paul writes: Lots of love for Scooby Wright over the awards season and preseason ... but I see very little written about his pro prospects. Any thoughts?

Ted Miller: Oh, he's pretty firmly on the NFL radar.

ESPN's Todd McShay projected him as a first-round pick in his "Way too early 2016 Mock Draft," going 28th to the Denver Broncos. He wrote: "He isn't an elite athlete, but his effort level and playmaking instincts are outstanding."

Mel Kiper included him with his "A dozen more considered" for his initial 2016, 25-man "Big Board." Wrote Kiper, "If it's about production, you won't do better than Wright, who led the nation with 29.0 TFL in 2014."

Yet the NFL isn't just about college production -- or even dynamic game tape, which Wright unquestionably has. Wright will need to prove he's a four-down LB in the NFL, one who has the athleticism to cover receivers in space. You'll hear anonymous NFL scouts questioning his speed and his hips.

But if he puts up huge numbers again this fall and then runs a 4.6 or even a 4.7 40-yard dash at the combine, my guess is someone will take him before the second round is over.

That said, considering he's grounded his obsessive college motivation in being "Two-star Scoob," my feeling is he'd be destined for a Hall of Fame career if he tumbled into, say, the seventh round.