Tag: Pac-12 championship game

It’s official: USC vs Utah in 2022 Pac-12 Championship Game

#Utah joins #USC in Las Vegas for the first #Pac12 title game in a division-free setup. Two teams from the old Pac-12 South will meet in a rematch.

There are three College Wire sites representing Pac-12 schools: Trojans Wire, Ducks Wire, and Colorado Buffaloes Wire. One of the three schools had a bad year in football. Another will be in the Pac-12 Championship Game.

The third school should have been in the Pac-12 title game, but it coughed up a 31-10 lead with four minutes left in the third quarter.

Oregon’s remarkable implosion opened the door for the Utah Utes — losers to Oregon just one week ago — to find a way to Las Vegas for the 2022 Pac-12 Championship Game.

It’s a remarkable turn of events — not that Oregon State won, but HOW the Beavers won. It opened the door for Utah to face USC in a rematch of an epic 43-42 game from Oct. 15 in Salt Lake City.

Much more on this matchup during the coming week, but let’s start with a few initial notes about Trojans-Utes, Part II:

Oregon Ducks officially eliminated from Pac-12 Championship contention

With Washington’s win over Washington State, the Ducks have officially been eliminated from Pac-12 Championship contention.

It looks like the Oregon Ducks will be taking the next few weeks off.

That may be a good thing, in the end. It will give them a chance to recuperate after what was an incredibly embarrassing and abysmal loss to the Oregon State Beavers, where they blew a 17-point fourth-quarter lead to lose the rivalry game in Corvallis.

The loss opened the door for the Washington Huskies to decide the fate of the Ducks, which is never something that you want if you’re an Oregon fan. With Washington’s 51-33 win over the Washington State Cougars in the Apple Cup on Saturday night, it made it so there was a 3-way tie for 2nd place in the Pac-12 standings. The Utah Utes held the tie-breaker over both Oregon and Washington based on strength of record, giving them the spot vs. the USC Trojans in the Pac-12 Championship Game.

So next Friday in Las Vegas, it will be a rematch between the Utes and the Trojans, which is part two of a thrilling early-season game that ended in a 43-42 Utah win.

Dan Lanning will have to wait another year before making it to his first Pac-12 Championship game.

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Who does USC want to play in the Pac-12 Championship Game?

After UCLA beat Cal, Washington is almost certainly not going to be #USC’s opponent in Vegas. It’s either @Ducks_Wire or Utah at this point.

If you asked USC fans whom they would prefer to play in the Pac-12 Championship Game next week, what do you think the answer would be?

Is it Utah, so that the Trojans can avenge their only loss of the season and thereby say they beat every team on their schedule?

Is it Oregon, because USC and the Ducks are often involved in a lot of intense recruiting battles in the West, and because beating Oregon would certainly improve USC’s outlook in recruiting against Dan Lanning and his staff? Is it because Travis Dye, now a Trojan, would love seeing his current team beat his former team, even though he personally can’t play next week in Las Vegas?

What about Washington? Caleb Williams versus Michael Penix would be all sorts of fun.

The Voice of College Football USC show talked about this topic. Be sure to follow the USC postgame show after the Notre Dame game on Saturday.

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USC football and Lincoln Riley refuted the very skeptical preseason media polls

Never forget: In the summer, #USC was picked 3rd in the #Pac12 by local+national media plus the coaches. Utah and Oregon were picked higher.

Beating the UCLA Bruins is a very sweet feeling for any USC fan. What adds to the sweetness of the win over the Bruins is the berth the Trojans have gained in the 2022 Pac-12 Championship Game, set for Friday, Dec. 2 in Las Vegas.

USC will play in the Pac-12 title game for the first time since 2017 and just the second time overall.

Playing in the Pac-12 Championship Game was a central preseason goal for this team. It means USC will be playing for either the Rose Bowl or the College Football Playoff. This is the expected USC standard. Team goals can be achieved.

However, there’s another dimension to this moment for USC which makes the Pac-12 title game extra special. We’ll give you the answer below, but not until after we rank the Pac-12 teams heading into the final full weekend of the regular season. Read the rankings, then keep scrolling down:

Pac-12 Championship Game tiebreaker scenarios: USC’s Dec. 2 opponent in Vegas

#Utah has NOT been eliminated by its loss to Oregon. There’s actually a very realistic scenario in which the Utes can face #USC in a rematch.

So, did the Utah Utes get eliminated by their loss to Oregon late Saturday night, while you were reveling in the aftermath of USC’s thrilling win over UCLA?

No, they did not.

Utah is not only alive; the Utes have a clear path to Las Vegas. They’re not in a preferred position — they need a lot of help — but the scenario they need is not that far-fetched at all.

Let’s walk you through the Pac-12 Championship Game tiebreaker scenarios which will determine the team USC faces on Dec. 2 in Las Vegas, plus some playoff and New Year’s Six bowl notes as well:

Pac-12 football standings: USC to Pac-12 title game, Oregon 1 win away from Vegas

If Oregon beats Oregon State, the Ducks will meet #USC in the #Pac12 title game. If the Ducks lose, things could get complicated.

USC stunned the country by knocking off UCLA at the Rose Bowl on Saturday night. Oregon finished out the weekend slate by defeating Utah in a tight game, and an Oregon-USC Pac-12 title game is looking more and more realistic.

Oregon State and Washington both won their games easily against inferior opponents, and we are just one more week away from the conference title game, which means bowl season is that much closer.

With the Pac-12 season reaching its end (and the college football season, for that matter), let’s examine the newest standings as we prepare for the final weekend of the regular season.

USC-UCLA game will have everything on the table for the Trojans, but not the Bruins

#USC vs #UCLA is a big game again, but UCLA’s loss prevents the battle for L.A. from being an even larger national story. (Thanks a lot, Bruins.)

This is a throwback year for USC football, not in terms of the style of offense the Trojans use, but certainly in terms of the stakes involved in their November battle with archrival UCLA.

From the mid-1960s through the early 1980s, USC-UCLA was often a high-stakes game. Both schools had great teams in the mid-to-late 1960s. The 1967 game between the two schools remains the most important USC-UCLA game of all time. The games between John Robinson and Terry Donahue in the late 1970s and early 1980s were regularly important. The late 1980s had some very big Trojan-Bruin games as well.

This upcoming game on Nov. 19 won’t be as big as 1967 — that’s really hard to top — but it brings back the magic of a hugely significant Trojan-Bruin battle. Let’s detail all the ways in which this game matters:

Strong chance USC-UCLA could be a late-night game, which would be awful

#USC – #UCLA was put on a 6-day hold by the TV networks. The outcome is bad for the #Pac12 and could get much worse for us and @Ducks_Wire

It is not a surprise — or a problem — that the upcoming USC-UCLA football game was placed on a six-day hold, meaning that the scheduled kickoff time and the assigned television network will not be disclosed until Sunday, Nov. 13 (or at least no later than the 13th). It was and is unlikely that a start time would be disclosed before Nov. 12, when another Saturday of games unfolds.

The problem is that the Pac-12, which is trying to return to the College Football Playoff for the first time since the 2016 season, will have reduced exposure in the pursuit of that playoff bid.

We have full reaction to the announcement of the six-day hold for the USC-UCLA and Utah-Oregon games, with an explanation of why this is such an embarrassment for the Pac-12:

Oregon fans might hate USC, but many of them want to play USC in Pac-12 Championship Game

.@Ducks_Wire staff writer @Donald_Smalley offered the view that Oregon fans want to play — and beat — Travis Dye. A “bring it on” mentality is strong in Eugene.

Do Oregon fans want USC to beat Utah this weekend in Salt Lake City? Should they? We have been asking Ducks Wire writers about these questions.

One Ducks Wire staff writer, Andy Patton, thinks Oregon fans should want Utah to win.

Ducks Wire editor Zachary Neel thinks Oregon fans should root for USC but will actually root against the Trojans and hope Utah wins.

Now, we turn to a third member of the Ducks Wire team.

Ducks Wire writer Don Smalley had this to say:

“A lot of Utah’s shine has been taken off with their lackluster performance vs UCLA. There isn’t anything there the Ducks can’t handle, especially at home. I think Oregon fans are chomping at the bit to face USC in that title game if it should occur. Oct. 22 is going to be huge with the Bruins coming into Autzen and probably ESPN GameDay coming to Eugene. I think it could be Lee Corso’s last trip out here and it’ll be special. After the Bruin game, Oregon is going to be favored in all of its games. With Travis Dye going to USC and not playing the Trojans in the regular season, Duck fans really want to see how the team matches up with Men of Troy. So they’ll be rooting for USC this weekend.”

Three Ducks Wire writers, three very different views of USC-Utah. Now we wait for kickoff in Salt Lake City.

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Everything we know following Oregon’s 38-10 loss to Utah in Pac-12 Championship

The Ducks suffered another humiliating loss to Utah, but this time it was in the Pac-12 title game.

It was deja vu all over again.

This is what Yogi Berra must have been talking about when he came up with that phrase. Oregon and Utah met for the second time in three weeks and the outcome was pretty much the same.

Absolutely nothing went right for the Ducks as they crapped out in Vegas, leaving Utah to go to its first Rose Bowl with a thumping of Oregon.

The Ducks talked all week about getting embarrassed the first time around and it wasn’t going to happen again. Someone forgot the tell the Utes that was the plan. Utah scored a touchdown on its first possession and never looked back.