The Pac-12 was left out of the playoffs again. Is parity killing the conference?

Scott G Winterton, Deseret News

SALT LAKE CITY — If you follow college football, you’re no doubt aware that for the fourth time in six years since the four-team College Football Playoff was instituted, the Pac-12 was left out.

The other Power Five conferences, the SEC, ACC, Big Ten and Big 12, will all be represented in the College Football Playoff later this month while the Pac-12 will not.

Again.

If you’re counting, since the College Football Playoff was established six seasons ago, the Pac-12 is in last place among the Power Five conferences with just two appearances. The Big Ten and Big 12 each have four appearances, while the ACC has six and the SEC has seven.

AP

Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott speaks at the Pac-12 Conference NCAA college football Media Day in Los Angeles, Wednesday, July 25, 2018.

The Pac-12 is quite aware of its place among the Power Five group and that something needs to change. Commissioner Larry Scott may as well have brought red-and-white pompoms along while he spoke to the media just prior to last week’s Utah-Oregon game, saying how important it was to get the Pac-12 back into the College Football Playoff.

“It would be an important step to get back in the playoff and hopefully win the national championship,” he said. “We’re eager to see it happen this year, hopefully.”

That could have only happened if Utah won, but Oregon spoiled the Pac-12’s chance for glory with a resounding victory.

Scott also said, “We want to win a national championship soon. That’s the thing that needs to happen, being in the playoff on a consistent basis and winning a national championship.”

Instead the Utes missed their golden opportunity to break into the final four, losing to an Oregon team that had blown its chances for a CFP berth by losing at Arizona State two weeks earlier. Both schools let the league down.

“You’ve got to pretty much run the table in conference, nonconference as well ... 12-0, 11-1, that’s pretty much what you’ve got to be. Nobody has been able to do that because we beat each other up every year.” — Utah coach Kyle Whittingham

After the Utes’ loss to Oregon, some fans weren’t happy with coach Kyle Whittingham’s comments when he talked about how hard it is to win a Pac-12 title.

When asked why the Pac-12 can’t get a team in the CFP, he talked about the “balance” and the “parity” in the league and how difficult it is to run the table and go undefeated.

“You’ve got to pretty much run the table in conference, nonconference as well ... 12-0, 11-1, that’s pretty much what you’ve got to be. Nobody has been able to do that because we beat each other up every year.”

OK, true enough. But is the Pac-12 harder to win than the SEC? The Big Ten? The ACC?

Somehow those conferences are able to produce teams that can go undefeated on a pretty regular basis.

Since 2014, 22 different FBS teams, including 13 from Power Five conferences have gone unbeaten through their league schedule. Clemson has done it three times, Alabama and Ohio State twice.

The Pac-12? Zero.

However, among schools from leagues that play nine-game league schedules, only Ohio State this year, Wisconsin in 2017 and Oklahoma in 2016 have produced unbeaten seasons (when Ohio State went unbeaten in 2014, the Big Ten was playing an eight-game schedule).

That’s something that definitely must change, and here’s where Whittingham makes a good point. He’s always said that whether it’s eight or nine games, all the leagues need to be standard. It’s not fair for some leagues to have to play nine-game schedules, while everyone else plays eight.

Right now, of the 10 FBS conferences, seven play eight-game league schedules, including the SEC and ACC. The Pac-12, Big Ten and Big 12 are the only three that continue to play nine league games. So if the other leagues are not willing to move to nine games and no governing body such as the NCAA is able to mandate that, then the Pac-12 should cut one of its league games out of the schedule.

Why should the Pac-12 with its “balanced” conference, play an extra league game while Alabama gets to play Western Carolina (and win 66-3) in late November, as it did this year, instead of another SEC opponent. The Crimson Tide and fellow SEC teams do this every season, substituting an easy opponent for a league opponent. If every SEC team played one more league game, then it would have seven more collective losses each year and less chance of an undefeated champion.

I’ve asked Scott about this on more than one occasion and he insists that the Pac-12 is going to stick with its nine-game schedule. So if that isn’t going to change any time soon, the Pac-12 and teams like Utah, need to change their attitude a bit. Instead of talking about how much parity the league has, they need to go out and win all their games like Ohio State and Clemson and LSU did this year.

Until then, the Pac-12 is always going to be on the outside looking in, while teams from the other four major conferences battle it out for the national championship.

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