College Football

Pac-12 needs to step up with Washington, Oregon, Colorado facing major tests

Published Sep. 9, 2021 11:10 a.m. ET

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By RJ Young
FOX Sports College Football Writer

Show us something, Pac-12. 

Do you really want this? To be talked about as the best conference in college football?

Because — and I’m being totally honest here — nothing you’ve done the past few seasons leads me to believe you’ve got what it takes.

Sure, you’ve recruited well. The No. 1 player in the 2021 class picked USC, even if the best quarterback in the sport flipped from USC to Alabama.

You’ve developed well. Oregon defensive end Kayvon Thibodeaux is the presumptive No. 1 overall pick next April.

But you haven’t beaten anybody, and even more concerning, you’re losing to nobodies.

Right now, in 2021, UCLA has carried your water with an upset victory against a ranked LSU squad. Outside of that, it has been rough, to be polite.

None of the other class teams in the Pac-12 has been tested yet in nonconference play, and some have already failed tests that should have been easy — looking dead at you, Washington.

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But that comes to an end this Saturday. 

The Pac-12’s Week 2 slate features:

* No. 12 Oregon at No. 3 Ohio State
* No. 21 Utah at BYU
* Colorado vs. No. 5 Texas A&M 
* Cal at TCU
* Washington at Michigan

That’s a "Vault of Glass" raid run on hard mode, and you have no choice but to hold your plate and run the relic before Atheon obliterates your whole team. Eyes up, Guardian, because those of the college football world certainly will be.

The Pac-12 has not seen its champion earn an invitation to the College Football Playoff since Washington's bid in 2016. Since then, it has been mostly embarrassing in nonconference matchups.

In 2019, UCLA lost to Oklahoma, Cincinnati and San Diego State. In 2018, the Bruins lost to OU, Cincy and Fresno State. In 2017, they lost to Memphis and Kansas State.

But that’s UCLA, which has hardly been a world-beater over the past decade. 

Pac-12 conference champions since 2017 include USC, Oregon and Washington.

In 2017, USC looked like it had something when the Trojans knocked off Texas in overtime, but then they got destroyed by Notre Dame 49-14 in South Bend. In 2018, they lost their marquee nonconference matchup to an eventual four-loss Texas team by three touchdowns. In 2019, USC managed to beat Fresno State, only to lose to BYU two weeks later in overtime and get thumped by Notre Dame in October.

Putting aside Washington's suffering its worst loss in recent memory to FCS Montana on Saturday, it performed admirably against its 2019 nonconference schedule, which did not include a single Power 5 opponent. 

The Huskies lost their 2018 season opener to Auburn on a neutral site in Atlanta and beat the only Power 5 school (perhaps in name only) on their 2017 nonconference schedule in Rutgers.

Oregon’s marquee victory in its 2017 nonconference slate was a Nebraska team that finished 4-8 and saw its head coach fired. In 2018, the Ducks' nonconference slate didn’t feature a single Power 5 opponent, and their 2019 season began with a loss to an Auburn team that had just beaten rival Washington the year prior.

So if you see an Auburn fan rocking a Pac-12 North Division Champs hat, you now know why. You’ll also see a couple of wins on Auburn’s résumé against the class of the sport, Alabama, whereas a Pac-12 champion is likely a two-touchdown underdog to any Tide team over the past five years.

That's why this weekend is enormous for the conference. 

With an Oregon victory against No. 3 Ohio State, which looks fully capable of making a third consecutive trip to the CFP, the Ducks would not only give the conference a chance to play in the invitational for the first time since the Obama administration but also win back some respect for the league in the process.

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With a Washington victory at Michigan, the Huskies could simply pass on the transitive energy that comes with losing to an FCS opponent while also challenging the superiority of a Big Ten that is firmly established as the second-best conference in the sport.

With a Colorado win against No. 5 Texas A&M, the Buffaloes could force the sport to stay up past 11 p.m. ET and see what real football looks like on "Pac-12 After Dark."

But if none of those wins comes to pass, college football fans will feel right to look down their noses at football played on Pacific time, and no one could blame them.

Marshall Mathers had it right. This is your one chance, one opportunity, to seize everything you ever wanted. Will you capture it?

Or will we joke about how you let it slip?

Defend your honor, Pac-12, lest you spend another year pushed aside and left out. I don’t think you can do it. 

So, yeah, I’m daring you — show me I’m wrong to doubt you.

RJ Young is a national college football writer and analyst for FOX Sports and the host of the podcast "The No. 1 Ranked Show with RJ Young." Follow him on Twitter at @RJ_Young, and subscribe to "The RJ Young Show" on YouTube. He is not on a StepMill.

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