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By Ted Miller
Just imagine: Unbeaten Stanford against 7-5 UCLA for the inaugural Pac-12 title.
That's not what commissioner Larry Scott imagined when the conference expanded and set up divisions so it could play a national-showcase championship game. Yet that's a perfectly plausible scenario, folks.
If UCLA and Arizona State both lose one more time, the Bruins will finish 7-5 overall and 6-3 in conference play, while Arizona State would be 8-4 and 6-3. But the Bruins' victory over the Sun Devils would give them the head-to-head tiebreaking edge.
While there are plenty of nutty scenarios -- what if there is a three-way tie in the South among UCLA, Arizona State and Utah, with each stuck with four conference defeats? -- there are four realistic candidates to play in the title game on Dec. 2.
The winner of the Oregon-Stanford game in Palo Alto, Calif., on Saturday is likely the North Division winner. In fact, if the Cardinal wins, it will clinch the title because it only has one remaining conference game. Oregon could beat Stanford but lose its final two games and hand the title back to the Cardinal.
In the South, it's either UCLA or*Arizona State. If the Bruins win out, they go to the title game. If the Bruins finish with the same conference record as the Sun Devils, they go to the title game.
But if Arizona State wins out and UCLA falls at least once, then the Sun Devils prevail.
Arizona State's remaining schedule is much easier: at Washington State, Arizona and California. UCLA's slate is: at Utah, Colorado and at USC.
This, by the way, is playing out about the way most folks saw it in the preseason. Oregon and Stanford were preseason top-10 teams, and their game was expected to have national implications.
And the south looked like a potential mess.
You can review the tiebreaking procedures here.
Originally posted by ESPN.com - Pac-10 Blog
Click here to view the article.
Just imagine: Unbeaten Stanford against 7-5 UCLA for the inaugural Pac-12 title.That's not what commissioner Larry Scott imagined when the conference expanded and set up divisions so it could play a national-showcase championship game. Yet that's a perfectly plausible scenario, folks.
If UCLA and Arizona State both lose one more time, the Bruins will finish 7-5 overall and 6-3 in conference play, while Arizona State would be 8-4 and 6-3. But the Bruins' victory over the Sun Devils would give them the head-to-head tiebreaking edge.
While there are plenty of nutty scenarios -- what if there is a three-way tie in the South among UCLA, Arizona State and Utah, with each stuck with four conference defeats? -- there are four realistic candidates to play in the title game on Dec. 2.
The winner of the Oregon-Stanford game in Palo Alto, Calif., on Saturday is likely the North Division winner. In fact, if the Cardinal wins, it will clinch the title because it only has one remaining conference game. Oregon could beat Stanford but lose its final two games and hand the title back to the Cardinal.
In the South, it's either UCLA or*Arizona State. If the Bruins win out, they go to the title game. If the Bruins finish with the same conference record as the Sun Devils, they go to the title game.
But if Arizona State wins out and UCLA falls at least once, then the Sun Devils prevail.
Arizona State's remaining schedule is much easier: at Washington State, Arizona and California. UCLA's slate is: at Utah, Colorado and at USC.
This, by the way, is playing out about the way most folks saw it in the preseason. Oregon and Stanford were preseason top-10 teams, and their game was expected to have national implications.
And the south looked like a potential mess.
You can review the tiebreaking procedures here.
Originally posted by ESPN.com - Pac-10 Blog
Click here to view the article.