As the great Jon Wilner has so , few conferences schedule their football teams out of success quite like the Pac-12.
A year ago, the schedulers did the conference’s top two teams (USC and UW) dirty with Friday night away games on the back end of back-to-back roadies (games both teams narrowly lost). This year, the conference put yet another avoidable road block in front of its top playoff contender (UW) with two straight road games concluding with a visit to an Oregon team coming off a bye. (Yup, the Huskies lost… in OT.)
Now, it’s Colorado’s turn.
While the Buffs are hardly the class of the Pac-12, that doesn’t excuse putting them in the situation they currently find themselves: visiting USC and Washington on consecutive weekends. Not only are those two of the marquee programs in the conference, that’s also roughly 3,200 miles of travel squeezed into eight days.
For a little perspective: Auburn (1,995), Michigan (2,611) and Oklahoma State (2,481) will travel less miles this entire season.
To throw a game at Seattle into the end of that two-week gantlet? That’s tantamount to scheduling a loss for CU.
Of course, it’s unlikely Colorado would win at Washington regardless of when the game was played. But that’s not the point.
If you want to maximize teams’ ceilings — which should be the goal of any conference — then you must avoid the sort of scheduling pitfalls that put teams at obvious disadvantages.
That means staying away from road back-to-backs whenever possible. If such a scenario is unavoidable, at least make sure that the second game isn’t either A) hosted by a team coming off a bye, B) against a team in the corner of the conference’s vast geographic footprint, or C) on a short week.
And while we’re at it, could we please revisit the nine-game conference schedule? If the SEC and ACC are going to stick to eight games and a slate of November nonconference creampuffs, why should the Pac-12 guarantee another loss for half its teams?
Those extra trips to California sure are nice. But so is an extra bowl bid or two.
—, The Denver Post
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If you see something thatap cause for question or have a comment, thought or suggestion, email me at dboniface@denverpost.com or tweet me .
