We’ve been talking a lot about the Pac-12 schedules that came out this week, and one of the main talking points for a lot of teams out west is the fact that their draw may be tougher than they anticipated.
That shouldn’t come as a major surprise, considering that the Pac-12 is expected to be among the best conferences in the nation this upcoming season, with 5-6 teams reasonably belonging in the top 25. To try and shed light on the situation, I went through and ranked who had the toughest schedule in the Pac-12, looking at what it might tell us going forward. What became clear during that exercise, and in listening to the narrative built over the past week, is that the USC Trojan fans are not happy with how things played out in the schedule-making process.
I think their anger is justified, as well.
[lawrence-related id=37945]
While a lot of detractors and non-USC fans will point to the off-week that the Trojans get in Week 13 ahead of the Pac-12 Championship game, take a second to look at the rest of the schedule, and a couple of the stretches that are mixed in there. In Week 7, USC goes to Notre Dame, and then has to turn around and play Utah at home the following week. Those are two potentially top-15 matchups, with the game in South Bend likely coming as a showdown between top-10 teams.
It doesn’t get much easier after that. While the Trojans get a rebound game against California in Week 9, they then have to host Washington in Week 10, and then travel to Oregon in Week 11 — another pair of top-15, potentially top-10 matchups.
Going 4-0 in that stretch is almost unimaginable for any team. Even splitting those games and going 2-2 feels like a win.
So why did USC get stuck with such a difficult draw in the middle of the season? I had USA TODAY’s Trojans Wire editor Matt Zemek on the Sco-ing Long podcast to talk things over. He gave an interesting take, noting that a little bit of spite and pettiness might be in the mix.
First off, if you’re George Kliavkoff, you want to be more generous to Oregon and Washington. Just in terms of the politics, you would want to throw a bone to the teams that are staying in your conference, and not to the ones that are leaving. So it’s not as if Kliavkoff is an idiot for smoothing the road for Oregon and Washington by giving them both an off-week before their big meeting. USC doesn’t have an off-week before playing Washington or Oregon; USC has to play Washington and Oregon back to back. That’s not the worst part of this for USC, though. The worst part is that in odd-numbered years, USC has to play Notre Dame in South Bend in mid-October. If you’re a USC fan, the one thing they wanted out of this schedule was ‘don’t give us a top-tier Pac-12 opponent — Utah, Washington, Oregon — don’t give us one of those three opponents either the week before or the week after Notre Dame. Well, the Pac-12 gave them Utah the week after Notre Dame. That was the flip-the-bird moment, and that’s really the centerpiece of why the Pac-12 shoved USC out the door angrily and didn’t give USC a decent shake.
If you compare that stretch of five games for USC to the toughest stretch of games on Oregon’s schedule — Week 7 at Washington, Week 8 vs. Washington State, and Week 9 at Utah — it’s clear which option I’d rather have. On top of that, the Ducks also get to play Utah the week after the Utes play USC, and USC the week after the Trojans play Washington. That’s not nothing.
George Kliavkoff made this schedule with ‘Daddy Phil Knight’ in mind. He wanted to make nice to Phil Knight here. ‘Phil, this is my gift to you. Phil, please be happy in the Pac-12. Phil, this is my best effort to smooth the path for you.’ This is Kliavkoff being a savvy politician and I don’t really blame him for it, but he’s clearly making the best effort to smooth the path for Oregon and Washington to say ‘Hey, you want to stay here in the Pac-12.’
Oregon’s schedule isn’t easy by any means — I have it ranked No. 5 toughest in the conference — but it’s clear that I would rather have the Ducks’ outlook over the Trojans.
What’s interesting is that the same pettiness didn’t happen with UCLA’s schedule. I have the Bruins ranked as the easiest schedule in the whole conference, with no Oregon or Washington on the horizon. UCLA is leaving for the Big Ten as well, so why didn’t they get a tough break of things?
[lawrence-related id=37976]
I’m not sure what the answer is. Maybe behind closed doors, the Trojans are the group that spearheaded this conference realignment and Kliavkoff wanted to stick it to them because of the chaos that they’ve now brought to the conference. Maybe it’s just a bad break of things.
Regardless of the reasoning, I understand USC fans griping about the shake that they got. If the Trojans are as good as they say they are, though, then it should be no trouble.
[mm-video type=video id=01gq7sfzf7rptn6n2n8w playlist_id=01f27mq9z7hjgk6vc6 player_id=01f1jz09x182sckzve image=https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/video/thumbnail/mmplus/01gq7sfzf7rptn6n2n8w/01gq7sfzf7rptn6n2n8w-b86064f8c09e7282154706188840aefe.jpg]
[listicle id=37982]