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Pac-12 Football Notes: How Will CFP Committee View Oregon?

This conference is all about offense (and bad defense). And the refs get more (bad) publicity.
Jake Curtis|
Pac-12 Football Notes: How Will CFP Committee View Oregon?
Pac-12 Football Notes: How Will CFP Committee View Oregon?

Following a weekend in which all four Pac-12 title contenders won, we address seven issues:

How Will Pac-12 Teams Fare in the First College Football Playoff Rankings Tuesday?

Four Pac-12 teams -- Oregon, USC, UCLA and Utah -- figure to be in the top 15 or so of the first CFP rankings, which will be released Tuesday.  But the big uncertainty is how the CFP committee will view Oregon. The Ducks had that ugly 49-3 loss Georgia in the opener, but have won all  seven games since then by scoring more than 40 points in each of them. Will Georgia's No. 1 status make the huge loss acceptable? Does the fact that Oregon seems to be a much better team now matter? Is getting squashed by any team by 46 points an automatic eliminator from national-title consideration?

Oregon, USC and UCLA are all 7-1, leaving all three in contention to become the first Pac-12 team since 2016 to earn a berth in the four-team national-championship playoff. Remember, only once since the CFP format began in 2014 has a 12-1 champion of a Power Five conference failed to get a CFP berth (Ohio State 2018).

Colorado athletic director Rick George is the Pac-12's representative on the 13-person CFP committee, and Wyoming athletic director Tom Burman is the only other committee member from the the West. None of the members is from the Pacific coast.

Oregon, USC, UCLA and Utah are ranked eighth, ninth, 10th and 12th, respectively in this week's AP poll, and CFP rankings usually follow the AP rankings pretty closely. We'll see.

The Pac-12 title chase might get dicey if USC, Oregon and Utah all finish with one conference loss, leaving it up to tiebreaking formulas to determine the Pac-12 championship-game pairing. USC and Oregon don't face each other in the regular season, so it could come down to the third tiebreaking scenario. The team that comes in third in that situation is not going to be happy. 

The key date is Nov. 19, when Oregon hosts Utah and USC faces UCLA in Pasadena.

 

Offense, Offense, Offense

The offensive numbers in the Pac-12 on Saturday were mesmerizing.

Five of the eight Pac-12 teams who played Saturday gained more than 500 yards of total offense, and six of them scored at least 34 points. Four running backs gained more than 100 rushing yards, and six receivers amassed more than 100 receiving yards. And quarterbacks continue to put up big stats.

Four Pac-12 teams -- Oregon, Washington, UCLA and USC -- rank among the top 12 in the nation in both scoring offense and total offense, and the SEC, with three such teams, is the only other conference with more than one in the top 12.

It's no coincidence that the quarterback for each of the Pac-12's four high-scoring teams transferred from another school this past offseason.

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Uh, Defense, Anyone?

Meanwhile, no Pac-12 team ranks in the top 20 nationally in either scoring defense or total defense.

The three Pac-12 teams in contention for a CFP berth rank 49th (UCLA), 76th (Oregon) and 88th (USC) in total defense. None of the three teams ranks in the top 50 in scoring defense, with first-place Oregon ranking 81st, behind the likes of UConn, Old Dominion and New Mexico.

Four Pac-12 teams rank 100th or worse in total defense among the 131 FBS teams, and two (Arizona and Colorado) rank among the bottom six in the country in scoring defense..

And you saw how powerless Pac-12 defenses were on Saturday.

So the question is this: Do Pac-12 offenses ring up big numbers because the defenses are so bad, or do the conference defenses look lousy because offenses are so strong?

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Individual Stars Aplenty 

Oregon quarterback Bo Nix (3 TD passes, 3 TD runs) and USC quarterback Caleb Williams (5 TD passes, giving him 24 TD passes and 1 interception for 2022) improved their Heisman Trophy resumes on Saturday, but they were not the most spectacular players on Saturday.

Two others were more impressive.

UCLA running back Zach Charbonnet did not have a carry or reception in the final 11 minutes, but he still had 198 rushing yards, 61 receiving yards and three touchdowns against Stanford on Saturday.

He ranks third in the country in rushing yards per game (137.7) and leads the nation in yards per carry (7.53).

Here are two examples of what he did Saturday:

Just as impressive was the performance in a losing cause by Arizona wide receiver Dorian Singer, whose numbers (7 receptions, 141 yards, 3 touchdowns) don't tell the whole story.

Two of his three TD catches were of the spectacular variety.

First was this diving one-handed catch:

And later was this grab when he climbed the ladder, reached up and snatched the pass amid tight coverage before getting blasted.

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Ah, Yes, the Officiating

Egregious officiating errors have become a weekly issue in the Pac-12, and one such error came up at the end of the first half of the USC-Arizona game.

First the video replay:

Followed by Lincoln Riley's immediate reaction:

Then the postgame comments from Riley:

The NCAA rule stipulates that the clock is stopped following a first down and is restarted when the ball is spotted and the referee signals the ball is ready for play.

Then this comment from respected Pac-12 reporter John Canzano:

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The Utah Secret

Utah should be commended for winning in Pullman, Washington, on Thursday without its starting quarterback, Cameron Rising, but FS1 was miffed that Utah did not give it a heads up that Rising would not be starting.

When Utah came out for its first offensive play, FS1 provided a graphic of Rising's exploits only to notice that Rising was not on the field and walk-on Bryson Barnes was the quarterback.

Print journalists understand that coaches may not reveal key injuries to them for fear of having a competitive disadvantage if the opponent knows about it.  But TV folks have an understanding with teams that such injuries will be revealed to them, with the teams trusting that the TV people wont reveal them until the game begins.

Utah claimed Barnes was not told he would be the starter until about a half hour before the game started, but that was still enough time to alert the TV people, who could have prepared a graphic about Barnes' interesting story to be shown when he trotted onto the field for the first snap. Instead FS1 was left scrambling.

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What Does Big 12 Media Deal Mean for Pac-12?

I'm not going to claim I understand all this stuff, so just take what you can from the people who know, as seen below:

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Top Five Pac-12 Teams

1. Oregon (7-1, 5-0 Pac-12) -- Ducks are third in the country in total offense.

2. USC (7-1, 5-1 Pac-12) -- Squeaking by Oregon State and Arizona raises some questions.

3. UCLA (7-1, 4-1 Pac-12) -- The Bruins bounced back from their loss to Oregon

4. Utah (6-2, 4-1 Pac-12) -- Utes are out of the CFP race but not out of the Pac-12 race.

5. Washington (6-2, 4-2 Pac-12) -- Huskies by a hair for this final spot over Oregon State, which plays Washington in Seattle on Friday night on national television.

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Pac-12 Player of the Year Standings;

1. Quarterback Bo Nix, Oregon -- He accounted for six touchdowns Saturday, and has been sacked just once this year.  Let me repeat that: He has been sacked just once this year.

2. Quarterback Caleb Williams, USC -- Third in the nation in touchdown passes (24) with just one interception.

3. Quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson, UCLA -- He seemed banged up against Stanford, and the Bruins can't afford to lose him.

4. Quarterback Cameron Rising, Utah -- Utes proved they can win without him, but the question is: How long will he be out?

5. Running back Zach Charbonnet, UCLA -- Leaving the nation's leader in passing yardage (Washington's Michael Penix Jr.) off this list just seems wrong, but who would he replace?

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Cover photo of Zach Charbonnet by Jayne Kamin-Oncea, USA TODAY Sports

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Jake Curtis
JAKE CURTIS

Jake Curtis worked in the San Francisco Chronicle sports department for 27 years, covering virtually every sport, including numerous Final Fours, several college football national championship games, an NBA Finals, world championship boxing matches and a World Cup. He was a Cal beat writer for many of those years, and won awards for his feature stories.

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