Pac-12 Football Bowl Review: Shut Out -- Again
You can tell when a conference does poorly in bowls when the coaches of that conference claim postseason results don't reflect the strength of a given conference.
With that in mind, I would image Pac-12 coaches are saying bowl results should not affect a conference's reputation -- at least not this season. That's because the Pac-12 did worse than every other FBS conference in the postseason. There are 10 FBS conferences plus a group of seven independent schools, and all but one of those 11 groups posted at least two bowl victories this season. The lone exception is the Pac-12, which won zero postseason games in five chances. (See conference bowl records at the end of this story.)
That gives the Pac-12 an 0-7 bowl record the past two seasons after the Pac-12 lost both its postseason games by wide margins last season -- Pac-12 champion Oregon losing to Iowa State 34-17 in the Fiesta Bowl, and Colorado falling 55-23 to Texas in the Alamo Bowl.
This season, the only Pac-12 team invited to a bowl that did not lose was UCLA, and the Bruins nonetheless may have had a worst postseason showing of any Pac-12 school because they pulled out of the Holiday Bowl less than five hours before kickoff. North Carolina State officials said they had been given no previous indication that UCLA was in jeopardy of not being able to play.
The final crushing blow was Saturday's Rose Bowl, when Pac-12 champ Utah fell to Ohio State 48-45.
Let's run down to the Pac-12's disappointing bowl season.
LA Bowl, Dec. 18 -- Utah State 24, Oregon State 13 -- This was not that bad of a loss. The Aggies won the Mountain West conference title, beating 19th-ranked San Diego State in the conference championship game. But two aspects of the game made the loss hard to swallow for the Beavers. 1. Utah State third-string quarterback Cooper Legas came off the bench to lead Utah State's rally from a 7-0 deficit after starter Logan Bonner left with a knee injury in the first quarter. Backup Andrew Peasley was already out with a shoulder injury. 2. Calvin Tyler, who played four years at Oregon State before transferring to Utah State earlier this year, ran 26 times for 120 yards and a touchdown.
Alamo Bowl Dec. 29 -- Oklahoma 47, Oregon 32 -- Remember back on Nov. 17, when Oregon was 9-1 and ranked No. 3 in the College Football Playoff rankings? The Ducks were in line for a berth on the national championship playoff, then things deteriorated badly. Two blowout losses to Utah in their three final games were followed by another blowout, this time to Oklahoma, whose head coach, Lincoln Riley, had fled to USC. Oregon's head coach, Mario Cristobal, was also gone, having taken the Miami job, but the Ducks looked completely overmatched in the first half, when the game was decided. Oklahoma led 30-3 at halftime, and although Oregon showed improvement in the second half, the Sooners, who had lost two of their final three games before the bowl, were never in serious danger of letting the lead slip away.
Las Vegas Bowl, Dec. 30 -- Wisconsin 20, Arizona State 13 -- The Sun Devils were within one score in the fourth quarter when it punted to Wisconsin, which took possession at its own 3-yard line with 9:57 left in the game. ASU never got the ball back. The Badgers used an 18-play drive that included 16 running plays to eat up the remaining 10 minutes of the game. The Sun Devils used all three of their timeouts to stop the clock during that Wisconsin possession, but the Badgers still ran out the clock. The drive and the game ended at the ASU 7-yard line. That's a pride-bruiser.
Sun Bowl, Dec. 31 -- Central Michigan 24, Washington State 21 -- Pac-12 teams are simply not supposed to lose to Mid-American Conference teams. That's especially true in a postseason game, when the Pac-12 presumably is represented by a pretty good team. Pac-12 teams had a 20-0 record against MAC teams before this season's Sun Bowl. Plus Central Michigan had to rearrange its travel schedule to play in the Sun Bowl after its game against Boise State in the Arizona Bowl had been canceled. Washington State's loss of quarterback Jayden de Laura after the first half did not help, but the Cougars already trailed 21-0 at halftime before he left.
Rose Bowl, Jan. 1 -- Ohio State 48, Utah 45 -- Past postseasons are littered with favored teams losing bowl games after they had a disappointing finish to their regular season and were relegated to a bowl they did not want to be in. Postseasons also have been filled with teams that finished the season strong, were excited that they earned a berth to an elite bowl and played great in the postseason. Ohio State represented the former scenario and Utah represented the second. So the Utes had the psychological advantage, not to mention the crowd advantage in the Rose Bowl. And although the Utes were without several key players, Ohio State was hit harder by player absences. Five defensive starters and two standout wideouts did not play for the Buckeyes. Utah seemed to be following the script when it took a 21-7 lead as Ohio State seemed to be going through the motions. But the Buckeyes dominated the second half. Ohio State quarterback C.J. Stroud passed for 573 yards and six touchdowns, and receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba had 347 receiving yards. Losing all-conference quarterback Cameron Rising midway through the fourth quarter certainly hurt the Utes' chances, but his replacement, Bryson Barnes, was 2-for-2 with a touchdown pass. A Utah win would have saved the Pac-12's football reputation, but . . . . .
Here are the bowl records by conference through Saturday, January 1 (with number of bowl teams in parentheses)
Pac-12 (5) – 0-5
American (4) – 3-1
ACC (6) – 2-4
Big 12 (7) – 4-2
Big Ten (10) – 6-4
Conference-USA (8) – 3-5
Independents (4) – 2-2
MAC (8) – 3-5
Mountain West (6) – 5-1
SEC (12) – 5-6
Sun Belt (4) – 3-1
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Cover photo of Utah at the Rose Bowl is by Adam Cairns, Columbus Dispatch, USA TODAY NETWORK
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