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The Pac-12 will play itself out of the CFP again

Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports / Reuters

The Pac-12 Conference could be out of the College Football Playoff before September ends for no reason other than its own aggressive scheduling.

Defending national champion Alabama leads the list of marquee opponents for Pac-12 teams in the first three weeks of the upcoming season. Michigan and Nebraska may well play for the Big Ten title. Texas A&M defensive end Myles Garrett might be the best player in America by year’s end. Road games at Boise State, San Diego State, and BYU represent some of the toughest tests available outside the Power 5.

Those are great games for fans to watch, broadcasters to televise, NFL personnel to scout. Those games are not so great for coaches trying to go undefeated or accountants staring at a second straight season without the additional revenue from getting a Pac-12 team in the playoff.

The Pac-12 has tremendous depth, but no elite teams entering the season, a bad combination for creating CFP contenders. There are strong cases to be made for Stanford, Oregon, Washington, or Washington State as the favorite to win the North, while the South is even more wide open. Add in a non-conference schedule that is the most challenging among the Power 5, the Pac-12 is already on the outside looking in.

The risk that comes with a taxing non-conference schedule can manifest in three ways. While other teams build up their records against FCS and directional schools, win-loss totals around the Pac-12 aren’t as impressive - a problem exacerbated by its insistence on playing nine conference games - hindering reputations and rankings. Go back to 2012 when Mississippi State rose to No. 13 in the AP Poll without beating anyone of consequence before losing five of its final six games, giving Alabama, Texas A&M, and LSU the added juice of beating a "ranked" team. The Big 12 schedule was so backloaded last season that no one had a real clue as to the relative merits of an Oklahoma State or Baylor until after the bowls.

There is the transitive property. If two conferences are competing for one berth in the semifinals, every head-to-head data point carries tremendous importance. Oregon’s loss at Michigan State and subsequent win at Stanford had to play some role in the selection committee choosing the Spartans over the Cardinal. Be it conscious or unconscious, those two games involving the Ducks had to play a role in shaping that decision. If A is greater than B, B is greater than C, the natural assumption is A is greater than C without anything actually backing it up.

Or, worst of all, you can lose. The Cardinal didn’t have to play at Northwestern last season. Replace the Wildcats with the Wildcats of Bethune-Cookman at home, Stanford is the 12-1 Pac-12 champion with a win over Notre Dame. That resume gets you into the four-team playoff, no questions asked.

Scheduling up isn’t a bad idea for the Pac-12. It gives players and coaches a real stage to show what they can do rather than giving somebody a big check for a guaranteed win. It gives fans a product worthy of the time and money they dedicate to attend a game. It lifts the sport by giving everyone a reason to be excited instead of just waiting for the start of conference play and "real" games.

However, the Pac-12 goes above and beyond what would be expected from any other Power 5 conference. The SEC won’t even play in the Pacific time zone, let alone take the risk associated with playing a Boise State on the blue turf.

What the Pac-12 needs to do is even the playing field. Get other Power 5 teams to play in Pac-12 stadiums, or at least travel to the West Coast for big money neutral site games. Require all Power 5 teams to play a nine-game conference schedule. For the sake of sanity, demand the SEC give up its de facto November byes against FCS opponents.

These common sense solutions won’t help the Pac-12 this season when the calendar reads October.

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