Midseason awards and USC-Oregon comparisons are hot Pac-12 topics

It’s the middle of the Pac-12 college football season. Our friends at Ducks Wire are in the middle of an off week. Oregon and UCLA are both resting before their next game on Oct. 22 in Eugene. We’re going to have a lot more on that game next week.

In the meantime, what about the state of the Pac-12 at the midway point of the season? Ducks Wire editor Zachary Neel talked to us about these topics. We’re going to share his views on big Pac-12 storylines entering Week 7. We  offered our own views to Zac, who will publish our insights at Ducks Wire.

You can read the full Ducks Wire midseason Pac-12 report here.

Let’s present one small segment of the larger exchange of ideas we had with Zac. This segment deals with the Pac-12 Championship Game matchup. Given that USC is about to play Utah, it’s worth including a forecast of Trojans-Utes in a larger prediction about which teams will meet in Las Vegas in December.

Our thoughts on the Pac-12 title race:

I think USC loses to Utah and beats UCLA. Oregon will split the UCLA-Utah home games. It might come down to Utah at Washington State. If the Utes beat USC, a win at Wazzu enables them to sneak back into the conference title chase and play Oregon for a spot in Las Vegas. If Wazzu wins, USC won’t have to worry about the head-to-head tiebreaker as long as it can beat UCLA. IF you asked me today — and that’s exactly what you are in fact doing Zac — I’d say USC-Oregon is the matchup.

Zac Neel’s view of the Pac-12 title chase:

How different this now looks with no divisions gate-keeping the championship game, huh? I think that the same three teams in line for a potential CFP berth — USC, UCLA, Oregon — are the front-runners to get to Vegas, and they all still have to play each other, save USC and Oregon. My belief is that Oregon will beat UCLA in two weeks, and though they might struggle with the Utes later in the year, I still think they win that game at home. At this point, my guess for a Pac-12…