The remaining Pac-12 members prior to the recent expansion will face off twice in a home-and-home series in November of 2025.
On Wednesday the Oregon State Beavers announced its 2025 college football schedule. The schedule includes two bye weeks as well as a home and home series against fellow Pac-12 member, Washington State.
Both matchups will take place in November with the first coming on Nov. 1 in Corvallis. The return matchup will close out the 2025 regular season against the Cougars in Pullman, Washington, at Martin Stadium.
The season will begin on Aug. 30 against the California Golden Bears at Reser Stadium. The first road game comes on Sept. 13 when the Beavers head to Lubbock, Texas, to take on the Texas Tech Red Raiders at Jones AT&T Stadium. The annual in-state rivalry game will be played at Autzen Stadium the following week.
Check out the full schedule released on Wednesday afternoon.
It isn’t common to see teams play each other twice in the regular season but it has occurred twice in a season with the last meeting coming in a conference championship game. This will be the first time in this series that the two teams will meet twice during the regular season.
Washington State vs Oregon State History
The Cougars lead the all-time series 57-48-3 according to Winsipedia. Since 2014 the series has been dominated by Wazzu going 9-1 over the last decade to extend their lead. It was flipped from 2004 to 2013 when the Beavers won eight of 10 matchups in that span.
If Washington State goes undefeated, will the CFP committee do the right thing and give them a spot in the playoffs?
The College Football Playoff has expanded to include 12 teams this season: the regular season winner of the SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, and ACC, one champion from the Group of Five conferences, and seven at-large spots which can go to any team at the FCS level.
Most of those seven at-large spots are expected to go to teams in the SEC and Big Ten, with as many as six SEC teams and four Big Ten teams all strongly in the mix right now.
However, there is a now independent school out in Pullman Washington that is slowly putting together a case and has enough strength of schedule remaining to potentially spoil the party: the Washington State Cougars.
Jake Dickert’s club is 4-0 to begin the 2024 season, and while all four games have been at home it hasn’t been a cakewalk. Sure Portland State in Week 1 was an easy 70-30 victory, but a dominant 37-16 win over Big 12 opponent Texas Tech in Week 2 turned some heads, especially now that the Red Raiders are 3-1 with a nice win over a surging Arizona State team in Week 4.
WSU then hosted in-state rival Washington for the Apple Cup, held early in the season thanks to the two programs no longer playing in the same conference, and the Cougars defense and timely offense led them to a 24-19 victory and a 3-0 start, which turned to 4-0 after a chaotic 54-52 victory over San Jose State last week.
Remaining Schedule
To first determine if Washington State has any chance of earning a bid to the College Football Playoff, we have to look at the remaining games on the schedule to determine if the quality of opponents is enough to merit consideration in the event the Cougars finish the regular season undefeated.
With a win each against the Big 12 and Big Ten, WSU is already off to a great start. And three of the team’s next four games are all true road games, and all against teams that will be in the Pac-12 alongside Washington State in 2026…although all three are currently still in the Mountain West.
The Cougars face Boise State in Boise on Saturday September 28th, then after a bye will play Fresno State in Fresno on October 12th. A home battle with Hawaii awaits on October 19th, followed by a road game at San Diego State on October 26th, then closing with Utah State at home, New Mexico and Oregon State each on the road, and then Wyoming at home on November 30th.
Sure, this isn’t the gauntlet teams in the SEC or Big Ten will be facing for the next two months, and if teams like Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Missouri, Ole Miss, Penn State, Oregon, USC, and LSU continue to play well it will be extremely difficult to find a spot for a program like Washington State – even if they win every game this season.
But, if WSU does capture road wins at Boise and Fresno, and if Texas Tech and Washington finish the season strong, the committee should give serious consideration to the Cougars as a College Football Playoff squad.
At the very least, this team deserves to be ranked despite being just outside the top 25 in both the AP and Coaches Poll after Week 4.
Good morning, Winners! Welcome back to the Morning Win. Thanks so much for rocking with us today. Appreciate you.
While you were sleeping, the Pac-12 was fighting for its survival.
The conference has reportedly coaxed four Mountain West teams into applying to become members of the Pac-12, according to reporting from Yahoo! Sports’ Ross Dellenger. Boise State, San Diego State, Fresno State and Colorado State are all expected to apply or have already applied for membership in the conference.
The move is all but official. The Pac-12 is already outside, thumping its chest.
Those four teams will join the Pac-12 by 2026, pushing it closer to the eight teams needed to remain an FBS conference. The NCAA has given the Pac-12 a two-year grace period to find more members to go along with Oregon State and Washington State, which are the only two teams currently left. Swiping these Mountain West teams is only the first step of a multi-step plan, Dellenger says.
You’d think the Mountain West would be negotiating with the Pac-12 from a place of power over these last few months after agreeing to a 2024 scheduling pact with the Pac-12 playing against the conference.
But things have gotten icy over the last few months, The Athletic reports, partially because of this move. The plan for the Pac-12 seems to have always been to coax Mountain West schools to make the jump.
This would always happen as soon as these two conferences began working together. The TV money will be better in the Pac-12. As it stands, Mountain West schools only make around $6 million annually from TV deals. There’s more money waiting if they make the jump to the Pac-12. And the conference would reportedly pay any Mountain West exit fees the teams incur, which sweetens the pot quite a bit.
But, man. Conference realignment. I won’t lie — I’m so tired of this.
I can’t blame the Pac-12 completely. It needed to do this to survive. This is only a ripple effect from 10 teams leaving the conference last year. Now, it’s got a much better path to the eight teams it needs. By 2026, it’ll be eligible for consideration for an automatic bid in the playoff or at least more cash.
But this is a tough day for the Mountain West. The conference is losing a third of its teams in the next two years and will have to scramble to recover. It’ll probably look to pulling up some FCS schools, which is fine.
But this is a lot. College football is becoming a lot. It’s chaotic. Keeping up with who plays where is a chore. Teams are bouncing from coast to coast every week.
It’d be nice for the football to matter most again. Maybe we’ll get back to that one day.
“The points are great. They’re going to always be there. I’m never going to stop shooting. But the group that we have in this locker room is something that I’m so genuinely happy to be around.”
What a moment for Wilson and the Aces. This has been a pretty rough season for the team (some of that is their own fault, btw), but this is a bright spot.
Our Christian D’Andrea did a deep dive on the gaudy rushing totals in the NFL for Week 1. Teams didn’t throw the ball as well, but the ground game across the league seemed to be a lot better to start this season.
But the catch is teams weren’t actually running the ball more — they just did it extremely well.
“It may have felt like Week 1 of the 2024 NFL season featured more run plays, but it wasn’t excessively more ground based than 2023. What it *was* however, was a much more efficient attack.
…
From an efficiency standpoint, runners were about as solid on the ground as they were in 2022 and each team ran the ball roughly one more time per game than they did two years earlier. There’s an explosion in rushing touchdowns here, but ultimately things aren’t too different than they were two years ago.”
Christian says we’re looking at a bit of an evolution here in the NFL. Defenses have become better at taking away the deep ball, leading to shrinking passing numbers and better boxes to run against.
In short, this is a pretty good season to be a running back. At least it seems to be so far, anyway.
The two schools left behind by the Pac-12 falling apart will face old rivals in Week 3, hoping to each make a statement with a victory.
The annual rivalry matchups between the Oregon Ducks-Oregon State Beavers and the Washington Huskies-Washington State Cougars have always carried significantly more weight than your average conference game.
In-state supremacy and year-long bragging rights are huge factors in rivalry games all across the country, and the two Pacific Northwest rivalries are among the oldest – and fiercest – in all of college football.
There’s rarely anything civil about the Oregon-Oregon State matchup – long known as the Civil War – while the Apple Cup between the two Washington schools has a rich history of dividing the state down the middle.
This year, however, the two games are set to take place this Saturday – and take on a very different meaning for the four involved programs.
The demise of the 100+-year-old Pac-12 conference – which long hosted all four teams – resulted in the Ducks and Huskies departing for the Big Ten and left the Beavers and Cougars homeless, hung out to dry without a conference while the eight other programs landed either in the Big Ten, Big 12, or ACC.
To add insult to injury, Washington State’s Athletic Director, Pat Chung, took the same position across the state at Washington, while Oregon State saw their promising head coach, and former quarterback, Jonathan Smith leave unexpectedly to take the same job at Michigan State, leading to mass exodus of talent including quarterback D.J. Uiagalelei (Florida State) and running back Damien Martinez (Miami).
And you can bet those two programs are looking for revenge this weekend.
The Beavers are 2-0 after knocking off Idaho State at home in Week 1, 38-15, and blanking San Diego State on the road, 21-0, in Week 2. Oregon State is top 40 in both offense and defense at CBS Sports, showing plenty of promise under new coach Trent Bray.
This will be the 128th matchup between the Ducks and Beavers, and while Oregon remains a top-ten team, winning at Reser Stadium has eluded them since 2018.
Washington State is also 2-0 to start the season, blasting Portland State 70-30 in Week 1 and securing a big win over a Big 12 opponent in Texas Tech during Week 2. The Cougs will travel across the state to Seattle to face UW, who is 2-0 as well under new coach Jedd Fisch.
PNW fans will have to split screen if they want to watch both games, which start at 12:30 PM PT on Saturday. The Apple Cup will be on Peacock, while Oregon and Oregon State will be on FOX.
The former Pac-12 conference teams are a combined 21-2 to start the season, with four programs ranked in the AP Top 25.
The 12 college football programs that made up the last full iteration of the Pac-12 conference are off to an outstanding start to the season collectively, a brutal reminder to west coast football fans of what could have been.
The teams currently sit with a combined record of 21-2, with the only losses coming when Colorado got trounced by Nebraska in Week 2 and Stanford’s loss to TCU in Week 1.
The two remaining Pac-12 programs, Oregon State and Washington State, are a combined 4-0 with the Cougars securing a win over Big 12 opponent Texas Tech in Week 2. Those two teams will face their old rivals, Oregon and Washington, in Week 3 – matchups between four programs that are all 2-0 on the year.
Oregon didn’t make it look easy, only beating Idaho by 10 and needing a fourth quarter comeback to defeat Boise State, but they remain a legit player for a spot in the expanded College Football Playoff alongside the USC Trojans, who knocked off LSU in Week 1 before blowing out Utah State on Saturday.
Oregon and USC are two likely College Football Playoff contenders in the Big Ten, while the Utah Utes and Arizona Wildcats are both in the picture out of the Big 12. Those four teams are all ranked in the AP Top 25, with Washington (27) and Cal (3) picking up votes as well.
In the ACC, Cal picked up a quality win over SEC opponent Auburn in Week 2, establishing themselves as a legit player in the conference thanks to star running back Jaydn Ott and a strong defensive unit.
While many of the rivalry matchups will still take place this season, the college football world was robbed of an opportunity to see this group of teams compete against each other in 2024.
Oregon State and Washington State did not extend a scheduling agreement with the Mountain West into 2025.
The Washington State Cougars and Oregon State Beavers each began the unprecedented 2024 college football season with a win on Saturday, but it wasn’t the big headline surrounding the two programs this weekend.
Rather, it was the lack of news.
Sunday, September 1 was the deadline to extend the football scheduling partnership with the Mountain West into the 2025 season, a deadline that passed without an agreement – although neither side felt any urgency to formalize plans.
“If there’s no agreement, that doesn’t mean we can’t still do something,” a source told Jon Wilner of the San Diego Union Tribune. “This is not a standoff situation.”
The current deal provides both Oregon State and Washington State with six games against Mountain West schools, three at home and three on the road, for the 2024 season.
The two schools plan to compete as a two-team conference for 2024 and 2025, and while the deadline has passed it does sound like the two sides could still agree to a similar, albeit restructured, scheduling agreement for 2025.
As of now, both Oregon State and Washington State already have six games scheduled for 2025. WSU will play North Texas, San Diego State, Idaho, Washington, Virginia, and Oregon State, while OSU will play Cal, Fresno State, Houston, Texas Tech, Oregon, and of course Washington State.
Fighting Irish Wire compiles all the head-to-head results for Notre Dame football versus the Pac-12.
The Pac-12 is now history, at least in terms of its sports competitions. They’re all done. There won’t be another Pac-12 Tournament with USC, Arizona, Washington, Oregon, Utah, and Colorado in any sport for the foreseeable future. We have to wait several years for a possible rebirth, but for now, the Pac-12’s lights are dark. With this in mind, what do the history books and the official record say about Pac-12 football teams, including against Notre Dame? Our friends at Fighting Irish Wire dug into this story.
“Notre Dame’s connection to the Pac 12 is very deep, especially on the football field as matchups in the 1920’s with both Stanford and USC helped grow the national image for the Irish.
“Although not nearly as deep with the others, Notre Dame football did however meet all 12 off the Pac 12’s teams on the football field and had a losing record against just one all-time.”
Guess which school has a winning head-to-head record against Notre Dame.
Michael Penix is getting microanalyzed, which is understandable after what the Falcons did.
The Pac-12 had three quarterbacks taken in the first 12 picks of the 2024 NFL draft. It’s a great result for Caleb Williams and the conference as a whole, but it certainly invites a lot of scrutiny.
USA TODAY Sports NFL analyst Michael Middlehurst-Schwartz went in on the Atlanta Falcons’ selection of Michael Penix at No. 8:
“For at least two years, there’s no off-ramp to the four-year, $180 million contract Kirk Cousins signed this March. By the time the 2026 regular season rolls around, Penix will be 26 – two years older than Jordan Love was this past fall when he took the reins to the Green Bay Packers’ offense. As a sixth-year senior with five seasons of starting experience, Penix isn’t exactly in the same boat as was Love. The second-place finisher for the Heisman Trophy can dazzle in the deep passing game when the conditions are right, but issues with mechanics, ball placement and being forced off his spot seem bound to be more prevalent problems in the pros.
“And while coach Raheem Morris and general manager Terry Fontenot can hope they’ve set up a similar succession plan here to the one Green Bay managed, pursuing an outlier outcome doesn’t make for a good process. And it’s never a good idea to send your freshly signed veteran quarterback down the Aaron Rodgers path of hurt feelings.”
Penix and Caleb Williams are both top-10 NFL draft picks. One selection was not questioned at all. Penix, on the other hand, is the single most-questioned draft pick of 2024. It’s a portrait of two different worlds.
Colorado was unable to land an ideal television partner for this year’s spring game
The Big 12-bound Colorado Buffaloes aren’t done yet with the Pac-12 Network.
As announced Monday, CU’s spring football game on April 27 will be televised on the Pac-12 Network, an entity that could very well cease to exist this summer. The Buffs, guided by head coach Deion Sanders, landed ESPN last year.
This year, however, ESPN is focusing its resources on the NFL draft that weekend and Fox appears to be prioritizing its relationship with the Big Ten Conference.
Colorado had three games televised on the Pac-12 Network last season, four on Fox, three on ESPN, one on ABC and another on Fox Sports 1.
Although the TV situation isn’t ideal for Coach Prime’s second spring game in Boulder, this year’s Black and Gold Weekend features quite the itinerary. Events include a talent show, an alumni reunion and a Lil Wayne concert at the CU Events Center following the game.
Colorado’s 2024 spring football game at Folsom Field will begin at 1 p.m. MT. Tickets can be found at CUBuffs.com.
Black & Gold Day Spring Game time and network have been set. Tickets go on sale Wednesday!
How will Pac-12 NFL draft prospects stack up against Big Ten prospects, one year before USC joins the Big Ten?
The NFL announced a list of 321 invitees to their scouting combine that will last from February 26 to March 4. USC Football has several former players at the event: Calen Bullock, Solomon Byrd, Jarrett Kingston, Brenden Rice, Tajh Washington, MarShawn Lloyd, Christian Roland-Wallace, and projected No. 1 overall pick Caleb Williams.
There are a lot of storylines to consider in relationship to USC’s combine prospects. Just one angle to take — out of many others — is that the Trojans’ class is part of the Pac-12’s very last football draft class. It’s historic, and not in a way anyone wanted or hoped for. Beyond the sadness at seeing the Pac-12 die, however, there’s an interesting football-specific point to make: Pac-12 football can be seen by some of its detractors as a wide-open conference in which defense isn’t taken seriously. The Pac-12 will naturally be compared to the Big Ten because USC and other schools will be moving to the Big Ten later this year. How will the Pac-12 stack up to the Big Ten at the draft? It’s one of the biggest questions on the board at the late-April event.
