First of all, I trust voting by coaches more than I do media / fans. Second, I am glad to when coaching awards do not "automatically" go to the team with the best record.

However in this case...basically Cronin improved UCLA by 3 wins compared to a year ago! Last year they were 9-9 in conference play and 17-16 overall. This year it was 12-6 and 19-12. That is Coach of the Year improvement?

Nor am I suggesting it should have been Altman(who has won it 3 times) even though he had only 3 returning players...not returning starters but 3 players total...yet perhaps in strange kind of way, Altman has done this previously and so it is assumed Oregon will be good regardless of the cirumstances.

I understand coaches are looking at how other coaches are doing through a different lens than media / fans so I am going to think it was simply a "let's welcome the new guy to the club" and give him the award type of vote. Kind of like Mike Hopkins at the uw when he won in his first year even though they finished in 7th place in the conference.

https://www.latimes.com/sports/ucla/story/2020-03-09/ucla-mick-cronin-named-pac-12-coach-of-the-year-chris-smith