In late May, a unanimous vote was passed by the Pac-12 head football coaches, changing criteria for the Pac-12 championship game. In 2011, when the University of Colorado and the University of Utah joined the conference, the Pac-12 was split into a North and South division, with the winners of each division facing off for the conference title.
Football fans across the West Coast have been calling for a change for years as division-winning teams would sometimes have worse records than the runner-up in other divisions. In 2020 for example, Oregon filled in for Washington, despite the Huskies having a worse record than USC and Colorado. The Buffs had the second-best record in the Pac-12 and missed out on a championship game bid. This made fans feel as though they were not truly seeing the two best teams in the most important game.
The fans got their wish. Starting this upcoming season, the two teams with the highest winning percentage will play for the championship regardless of geographic location. So there could be two teams from the same state or region playing in Las Vegas on December 2.
“Our goal is to place our two best teams in our Pac-12 football championship game,” Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff said in a statement about the format change. “Which we believe will provide our conference with the best opportunity to optimize CFP invitations and ultimately win national championships.”
The scheduling still looks the same for now. Oregon will continue to play all of the traditional North teams this season. Stanford, Cal, Washington, Washington State and Oregon State still fill the Ducks’ season. But now, instead of needing to have a better conference record than those five teams, Oregon will need to have one of the top two records across the entire conference.
If this new format had always been around, Oregon would have played in seven championship games instead of the five it’s already competed in. In fact, five of the last 11 seasons, the matchups for this game would have varied.
The format may have changed, but the goal remains the same.
“Our goal is to win every single game at the University of Oregon,” Oregon head coach Dan Lanning said on Pac-12 Media Day. “After that game, the next game will be the next most important game. So we’re going to focus on that.”
Oregon can likely afford to lose up to one conference game and still punch its ticket to Vegas. Fortunately for the Ducks, the three opponents that appear to be the toughest — Washington, Utah and UCLA) — will all play in Eugene this year. Oregon has not lost at Autzen Stadium since September 2018.
New format, same talent, same mentality. Oregon still appears to be a favorite to play for the Pac-12 championship; there could just be a different flight pattern to Las Vegas for the Ducks.
