USC fans might not enjoy the sight of UCLA winning, but Friday night’s victory by the Bruins over the Washington Huskies clearly helped the Trojans in their push for the Pac-12 championship.
Washington does not play Utah or USC this season. The Huskies had the path to Las Vegas if they could have beaten UCLA.
On paper, the toughest games for the Huskies in Pac-12 play were the three games against their Pacific Northwest neighbors: Oregon, Washington State, and Oregon State. A win over UCLA would have enabled Washington to go 2-1 against those three teams and still occupy a favorable position in the Pac-12 title chase. Now, with this 40-32 loss to UCLA in the books, the Huskies have to go 3-0 against their Northwest rivals if they want to finish 8-1 in the Pac-12, which is the likely conference record for the teams which will meet in the conference championship game in December.
USC fully expects to beat UCLA later this season. The Bruins winning against a team which doesn’t face USC is clearly good news for the Trojans, strictly in terms of increasing their Pac-12 title odds.
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