Help them Utah, you’re the Pac-12’s only hope for a return to the College Football Playoff
With just a few days before bowl selection Sunday, the Pac-12 is in a prime position to reach the College Football Playoff for the first time since 2016.
This time, it isn’t the Huskies that could potentially fly the banner for the conference. It will be the Utah Utes, IF they win Friday’s Pac-12 championship game vs. the Oregon Ducks in Santa Clara, CA.
Just how did we get to this point?
At the start of the 2019 season, the leading playoff contenders along with Utah were the Oregon Ducks and Washington Huskies. The path to the playoff for the Pac-12 appeared to be dead even before the season got into full gear as contenders fell by the wayside.
Oregon coughed up a double-digit lead in the season opener vs. Auburn at AT&T Stadium, and then the Washington Huskies tripped up a week later in an early morning loss to Cal. Add in Utah’s loss at USC to end the month of September put the Pac-12’s playoff hopes on life support.
As the season transitioned into October and November, the Pac-12 saw their chances come back to life as the SEC and Big Ten started to knock each other off. As Penn State, Alabama, and Florida fell off you saw an ascension of Utah and Oregon at the same time. If not for Oregon’s stunning loss at Arizona State, we would be seeing Oregon-Utah as a de facto “play-in” game to the playoff. Now, it is all on Utah as they are 60 minutes away from a potential playoff spot.
What a win means
What’s the old line you hear most coaches say? “You can control only what you can control”. For Utah, that’s basically their mantra this week. If they can defeat Oregon on Friday and they will have done their job and taken care of business as the No. 5 ranked team in the latest CFP ranking. The pressure would be Oklahoma or Baylor to produce an exemplary the following morning in the Big 12 Championship Game.
However, this needs to be taken into account. In the five weeks of issued rankings this season, Oklahoma has not gone past the Utes in the CFP rankings. If both teams win this weekend, aided by a Georgia loss then Utah will be in. However, if Georgia, Clemson, and Ohio State all win then Utah will be out of the playoff due to LSU arguably having the best resume of a one loss team. At that more cries for playoff expansion.
What a loss means
It’s pretty simple, if Utah loses in the Pac-12 championship game, they are done. No playoff, Oregon goes to the Rose Bowl and where does Utah go? Well, you’re very likely to see them headed to the Cotton Bowl vs. probably Group of Five representative Memphis. It’s not a bad game (a VERY good one, in fact) but it would still feel like a consolation prize and have thoughts of “what could’ve been”.
Does Utah need “Style Points”
When you usually hear the term “style points”, it’s attached with the need to blow someone out. For Utah, their case is different. They just need to look good in Friday’s game vs. Oregon. I don’t think they need to run up the score or blow out the Ducks. There are a lot of national college football pundits who have not watched much of Utah or seen the Utes at all that will say the Utes need style points.
They really don’t need them, however they do need to have a good showing in front of a national audience. If they repeat
This story was originally published December 5, 2019 at 1:20 PM.
