USC and Oregon show that the Pac-12 demands a fresh evaluation

In college football, it’s perfectly okay to be blown away by developments you don’t expect. It’s the nature of the sport. Chaos is a feature, not a bug. Allowing a feeling of surprise to have its way with you for 24 hours is perfectly reasonable.

After those 24 hours, however, you need to come to terms with what you’ve seen. You need to adjust to the new reality and not allow brand-name associations to carry more power than they ought to.

Such is the case in the Pac-12, college football’s most turmoil-filled power conference (with the others all featuring their own considerable upheavals, but not to the same extent).

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In the 21st century, the two most successful Pac-12 football programs have been USC and Oregon. This is not a debate. 

Stanford has been an excellent program since 2010, but Oregon finished No. 2 back in 2001 and was a national contender from 2005 through 2007. The Ducks could have soared so much higher had quarterback Dennis Dixon not encountered major injury problems. When Chip Kelly took over after Mike Bellotti set the table for him to succeed, the Ducks reached the next plateau. Making a second national title game in the past five seasons — and doing so under a non-Kelly head coach, Mark Helfrich — does indeed vault the Ducks past Stanford for No. 2 in the 21st century. Pete Carroll’s dynastic reign through the 2008 season still has USC as the most successful Pac-12 football force of the century to date, though Oregon has closed the gap and Stanford sits in bronze medal position.

Now, however, the fact that USC and Oregon have looked down on (most of) the rest of the Pac-12 this century has to be discarded. Pundits, bloggers, the whole community of people who analyze college football as a profession, must detach from the brand-name associations and treat USC and Oregon as the vulnerable, not-that-good teams they are at the moment.

Maybe USC has a surprise in store for us this weekend against Notre Dame. Maybe Vernon Adams comes back and gives Oregon a shot in the arm. Maybe.

However, based on what we have seen and are seeing — not on what we might see in the near future — USC and Oregon can’t be viewed as likely losses for other Pac-12 schools. Not now. This requires a fresh evaluation of the Pac-12 season as it nears the midpoint of the nine-game league schedule.

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Let’s not make this complicated. New evaluations of USC’s and Oregon’s conference schedules must be undertaken.

Shall we start with USC? Why not?

The Trojans host Utah. It’s not as though Steve Sarkisian would have given the Trojans a “better” chance to win this game, but with the chaos that’s currently enveloping the USC program, playing the Trojans sooner rather than later seems like an advantage. Utah’s chances of winning at USC have certainly risen in previous weeks. Those chances are even greater at the moment, and might rise even more in the dozen days preceding kickoff. That’s a big boost not only for Utah’s Pac-12 South title hopes, but for its ability to forge a 12-1 season, the kind of season which — should the Utes lose to Stanford in a heavyweight Pac-12 title game — would still result in a New Year’s Six bowl and a highly satisfying reward for a year of accomplishment. The door is open wide for the Utes, as they try to follow in the footsteps of the 2008 team… and maybe go one better, straight into the College Football Playoff. (The 2008 team, of course, would have been part of a four-team playoff.)

Which other teams will be conspicuously affected by USC’s conference schedule? The Trojans play California on Oct. 31. The Golden Bears will host that game and must love their chances of winning. The way most of us perceived that game before the season is certainly not the way we perceive it in the present tense.

After playing Arizona and Colorado, USC goes to Oregon on Nov. 21. Before the season, that felt like a game which would swing one or both divisions in the Pac-12. Now, it shapes up as a game in which one or both teams might be scrambling for mere bowl eligibility.

Sports are crazy, part 19 trillion.

USC then closes its season against UCLA. The Bruins might have stubbed their toes against Arizona State, but they have feasted on USC in this period of instability for the Trojans. One shouldn’t expect anything different in 2015, meaning that if Utah unexpectedly loses and UCLA is in position to steal the South, one should not expect USC to play spoiler. Utah needs to beat UCLA (at home) in order to win the South.

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Now, let’s move to Oregon’s schedule.

The Ducks’ game at Washington this Saturday has become a far more mysterious event than any of us could have envisioned two months ago. Yet, with Oregon hemorrhaging and the Huskies feeling good about themselves after knocking off USC in Los Angeles, there’s an “anything-can-happen” vibe in Seattle. Either team could run away with this game… or it will be a white-knuckler.

Then things get really interesting for the Ducks… and the rest of the Pac-12.

Beginning on Oct. 29, Oregon faces Arizona State, Cal, and Stanford before closing with the aforementioned game against USC and then the Civil War versus Oregon State.

Arizona State has not fared well AT ALL against Oregon, so the Ducks’ internal deterioration certainly offers the hope of a different result this season. Should Arizona State upend Utah this weekend, the fact that USC (owner of a head-to-head tiebreaker against ASU) has fallen off the pace would put the Sun Devils in prime position to take the South. If ASU does beat Utah, the ability to pick up a home win over Oregon would affirm the Devils as the division favorite. Guess you better watch ASU-Utah this weekend, then.

Oregon-California did not seem to be a game in which the Golden Bears would be expected to win — not when we looked over schedules in August and mapped out the season. However, the Ducks’ dramatic decline in 2015 makes it impossible to tab Oregon as the favorite… unless Vernon Adams returns and unleashes hell on Arizona State on Oct. 29.

As for Oregon-Stanford, the fact that the Cardinal host that game will make it extremely difficult to see how the Ducks leave The Farm in one piece. Stanford has UCLA this Thursday. Should the Cardinal pass that test, their toughest remaining league game would be the Big Game against Cal on Nov. 21.

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The final summation, after this new evaluation of Oregon’s and USC’s remaining schedules, is as follows:

1) Arizona State-Utah and UCLA-Stanford, both coming up in a few days, are immensely important… not just because they’re right in front of us, but because those four teams are positioned to benefit from USC’s and Oregon’s drop-offs this season.

2) California, by playing the weakened versions of both USC and Oregon in the second half of the season, has a Golden (Bear) opportunity to surprise everyone, even after losing to Utah in week six.

About Matt Zemek

Editor, @TrojansWire | CFB writer since 2001 |

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