No. 1 question from CU Buffs fans at the start of the week:
What the expletive?
The Pac-12 is moving the pieces as if it wants its championship football game staged, no matter what. As if it wants a seventh week of regular-season games for television purposes, no matter what.
Logic would dictate just declaring the league title tilt a no-contest and declaring USC (5-0, 5-0) the conference champ. A conference champ that never played the Buffs, (4-1, 3-1), granted, but we’ve beaten that dead horse enough already.
The bottom line, and the biggest bucks, are in reaching the College Football Playoffs. The Pac-12 is going to place at least one rep in a New Year’s 6 bowl, regardless.
The league wants two things, primarily: USC playing, and a league-wide slate of some kind to feed to its network partners for the third week of December.
College football players are entertainers. College football is entertainment programming. According to by Jon Wilner in the San Jose Mercury News, Pac-12 football programming inventory is worth an estimated $221 million from the league’s television rights-holders for the ’20-21 school year. For a 13-week regular season, that averages out to an estimated $17 million to the league, and its members, for every week of content provided.
So yes, the prudent decision, given the mess in Seattle, would be to declare USC the league champ now that Washington can’t make it to the title game due to COVID reasons. Or to declare co-champs, which is the Mountain Westap fallback plan if Boise State or San Jose State can’t make that conference’s championship game.
Meanwhile, the Pac-12 has spent the last two days yanking its members around.
Translation: Without a championship thatap actually played on the field, the league’s not getting its $17 million.
Ergo, Oregon (3-2, 3-2) is being asked to come to Los Angeles to make sure that contest, that content, happens.
Meanwhile, the Buffs, as of lunchtime Monday, are without a dance partner to end the regular season. And told by the Pac-12 that they can only schedule a non-conference tilt if that non-conference opponent is cool with:
• It being a Pac-12 home game;
• It being a Pac-12-controlled television game;
• It being a game the Pac-12 can pull CU out of as late as Thursday if, and only if, USC hits a COVID wall of its own.
Can you see the CSU Rams saying ‘yes’ to all three conditions? On short notice?
In other news Monday, the Buffs dropped from No. 2 to No. 5 in the latest Denver Post Best of the West top 25 poll. The Best of the West poll, which is unveiled each Monday, ranks the top 25 FBS programs from the Front Range to the Pacific Ocean, as culled from the Pac-12, the Mountain West and BYU.
Post columnist Sean Keeler (@SeanKeeler), Post deputy sports editor Matt Schubert (@MattDSchubert) and Post reporter Kyle Fredrickson (@KyleFredrickson) vote on the top 25.
The rest of the latest rankings follow, with in-state squads listed in bold:
THE DENVER POST BEST OF THE WEST TOP 25 POLL — DEC. 14
1. USC (5-0) (3 first-place votes) — Previous: 1 // Up next: vs. OREGON, PAC-12 CHAMP., Fri.
2. BYU (10-1) — Previous: 3 // Up next: IDLE
3. San Jose State (6-0) — Previous: 4 // Up next: vs. BOISE, MWC CHAMP., Las Vegas
4. Washington (3-1) — Previous: 5 // Up next: IDLE
5. CU (4-1) — Previous: 2 // vs. TBD
6. Boise State (5-1) — Previous: 5 // Up next: vs. SJS, MWC CHAMP., Las Vegas
7. Oregon (3-2) — Previous: 7 // Up next: vs. USC, Los Angeles
8. Utah (2-2) — Previous: 13 // Up next: vs. WAZZU
9. Stanford (3-2) — Previous: 9 // Up next: at UCLA
10. UCLA (3-3) — Previous: 8 // Up next: vs. STAN
11. Nevada (6-2) — Previous: 10 // Up next: IDLE
▲12. Arizona State (1-2) — Previous: 18 // Up next: at OREST
13. San Diego State (4-4) — Previous: 12 // Up next: IDLE
14. Air Force (3-2) — Previous: 14 // Up next: at ARMY
15. California (1-3) — Previous: 15 // Up next: vs. AZ, CANCELED
▼16. Oregon State (2-4) — Previous: 11 // Up next: vs. ASU
17. Washington State (1-2) — Previous: 17 // Up next: at UTAH
18. Hawaii (4-4) — Previous: 19 // Up next: IDLE
19. Fresno State (3-3) — Previous: 16 // Up next: IDLE
20. New Mexico (2-5) — Previous: 24 // Up next: IDLE
21. Wyoming (2-4) — Previous: 22 // Up next: IDLE
22. CSU (1-3) — Previous: 21 // Up next: IDLE
23. Arizona (0-5) — Previous: 20 // Up next: at CAL, CANCELED
24. Utah State (1-5) — Previous: 23 // Up next: IDLE
25. UNLV (0-6) — Previous: 25 // Up next: IDLE
▲= Biggest climb of the week
▼= Biggest drop of the week
•
The next Best of the West poll will post Monday, Dec. 21.
