This just cements to me that it’s foolish to schedule these difficult OOC games. If we had taken on cupcake U and were undefeated we would be in the top 4. I get that we are trying to show that we belong, but all it has done is bite us in the ass.
I tend to agree...however...Oregon's win at Ohio State last year propelled them into the playoff mix. It's also worth pointing out that the Ducks were paid over 3.5M for that trip to Atlanta. That's a solid chunk of change
but it's true that if Oregon was 9-0 with OOC wins against Fresno State, EWU, and BYU, they'd be ahead of TCU right now, in 4th position. They'd still be in the same position though and have to win the next 4 games and that's not likely
there is a giant fork in the road coming up though. If Oregon/Washington go to the Big-10, then, for their OOC schedules it would be idiotic to have
every-year-home-&-home games against Beavs/Cougs. Those would become annual trap games for each school where there would be no payoff, at all, for winning, and a huge cost to losing. And for the Beavs/Cougs those games would be their in-season bowl games.
but if Oregon/Washington don't go to the Big-10, the Pac-12 becomes a glorified version of the Mountain West Conference and it very well could be the Ducks have to schedule a Big-10/SEC team every year, and win, to pad their resume enough to get into the playoffs. Although a 12 team playoff might just earmark the Pac-12 champion for an automatic bid (
but I'd bet that a 2-loss conference 'lesser' champion would not get in), it's very likely that would be the only team from the conference in the playoffs. meanwhile, the Big-10/SEC would likely each have 4 teams in, every year, and that would just widen the gulf in revenue between the two '
haves' super-conferences and all the '
have-not' conferences like the Pac-12.