Oregon at USC 2019, Pac-12.
Everybody knows that Plan B is never as good as Plan A. If it were, Plan B would be the first option. Sometimes Plan B is so ill-conceived that putting it into action is worse than calling the whole thing off. Welcome to Pac-12 Championship Weekend.
News broke on Monday afternoon that Pac-12 North Division winners the Washington Huskies cannot play in the championship game due to COVID-19 cases and contact tracing within the program. They won’t have the required 53 scholarship players, and their entire offensive line is unavailable.
Rather than declare the game a no contest and make USC the Champs or even co-champions with Washington (which is still better than this), the Pac-12 replaced UW with Oregon. Now a sham game sends the winner to a New Year’s Six Bowl. It’s a screw up with catastrophic consequences.
First of all, sending a team into a championship game that didn’t earn it is wrong. This isn’t a boxing match where if a fighter breaks his hand in training, the promoters find someone to take his place. This is football, where teams earn their shot at a title. There is no back door into championship games. Further, Oregon wasn’t an “alternate” to Washington; they finished second.
For everyone who said Washington ducked (no pun intended) Oregon in the regular-season finale and deserves this, think about it. UW had their opener against California canceled. No one accused the Bears of anything nefarious. Of course, Oregon lost to previously winless Cal in their most recent game on December 6.
The USC – Oregon matchup is a money only proposition, and not a good one. They want to make FOX happy. Don’t count on anyone being happy, except the University of Oregon and their supporters.
This game is unlikely to net the Pac-12 the gains they think it will because most knowledgeable fans see this championship for what it is, a farce. With all due reverence to FOX, outside of Southern California and Eugene, Oregon, it doesn’t do much for them either. People won’t watch a game they know is bogus. The credibility of all parties involved takes a big hit.
Commissioner Larry Scott played from a weak hand, as he usually does when it comes to television. The Pac-12 easily could have scheduled five games for this week, given them to FOX, and not played a “championship game.”
That’s all water under the bridge because the game will happen. So now the best team in the conference, USC, who is coming off of a rivalry game to a short week because the Pac-12 Championship is Friday. Trojans leading rusher Vavae Malepeai is questionable with a sprained knee. Meanwhile, Oregon essentially had a bye week to practice and get healthy. Southern Cal fans probably laugh that off as “it will make the game competitive.” But it’s a genuine concern.
Let’s take it a step further. Say Oregon shocks the world and beats USC in Los Angeles. The Pac-12 then recognizes Oregon as its conference representative to the New Year’s Six bowl games. Talk about a black eye. At that point, the Pac-12 becomes the laughing stock of college football… again. One of the few things the conference still has is the integrity of a legitimate champion. Now that too could be long gone by the night of December 18. In effect, the Pac-12 treated their cash cow like the henhouse dog. Further proving they are the weak sisters of the Power-5.
All they have is themselves to blame.
Let’s rewind the clock a little bit. When the Big Ten announced they were calling off football, the Pac-12 was right behind them. Then when the Big Ten reversed that decision under pressure, it put the Pac-12 under the microscope. As a matter of fact, the Big Ten and Commissioner Kevin Warren came off looking good with a nine-game schedule beginning October 24. The Pac-12, however, looked like idiots.
Warren got a call from the President about playing this season. The Pac-12 was called out at a campaign rally, and Larry Scott wasn’t mentioned by name. Ouch. Then Scott tried to blame state politicians for the conference not returning to play. Bad idea.
The politicians showed Scott how politics really worked. Within a day, Oregon Governor Kate Brown threw Scott under the bus, and then California Governor Gavin Newsome backed it up over him again for good measure. Both governors basically said, very publicly, there was nothing at the state level preventing the Pac-12 from putting on games.
Reluctantly, the conference finally agreed to a seven-game schedule, beginning November 7. They could have started the same week as the Big Ten or even the week after. But nope, they decided to squeeze a seven-game schedule into seven weeks, with as little thought as possible as to how it would work out.
At this point, we know how it worked out. Cancellations marred the season, and the Pac-12 gave themselves absolutely no wiggle room to make corrections in a dynamically changing environment. Now all that’s left is an illegitimate championship game.
How do you feel about the Oregon vs. USC, Pac-12 Championship game? Let us know in the comments section below or on social media.