The Pac-12 dominated the midweek college football news cycle after it dropped a stunning announcement and formally admitted four new members to its footprint. The timing could not have been much more advantageous for the much-maligned conference, as its two remaining members and one of its new additions played in high-profile showdowns in front of national audiences in Week 3 action. Talk of the league’s path forward took center stage in three rivalry battles: Oregon State-Oregon, Washington State-Washington and Colorado State-Colorado.
The Cougars parlayed the conference realignment news into an Apple Cup triumph and are riding high with votes in the Week 4 AP Top 25 poll and national love for quarterback John Mateer pouring in. The Beavers and Rams were not so fortunate, though, as Oregon used the big stage in Corvallis as a get-right opportunity and Colorado rebounded with a resounding win in the Rocky Mountain Showdown.
Between the Pac-12’s step towards staying relevant in the long-term college football picture and a couple of the West Coast’s most prominent programs getting back on track, Week 3 was a momentous one with numerous implications down the line.
OREGON KICKS INTO GEAR WITH RIVALRY BLOWOUT
Oregon called it the first “clean game” of the season. That is precisely how it looked for the Ducks in a 49-14 rout of Oregon State. Following two weeks of major offensive line concerns and consistent rotation in the trenches, Dan Lanning settled on a group and watched as it did its job. Iapani Laloulu started at center and looked like the solution to the team’s blocking woes in the middle of the line, and the rest of the group settled in with a dominant showing, protecting quarterback Dillon Gabriel to its greatest extent to date.
Run defense still looked like a slight issue with Oregon State able to grind it out on the ground and dictate the game’s pace throughout the first half, and quarterback Dillon Gabriel again misfired on what should have been a touchdown pass to an open receiver. But the operation as a whole was much more sound.
With its most glaring weakness seemingly shored up — though how it fares against the Big Ten’s elites remains a key test — Oregon looked more like the national championship contender that most tabbed it to be in the offseason. If they truly found their answer up front, the Ducks can use their upcoming bye week as a chance to hammer everything home before embarking on conference play.
PAC-12 EXUDES VITALITY IN BIGGEST WEEK SINCE 2023 COLLAPSE
Oregon State and Washington State were outward over the last year with their wishes to rebuild the Pac-12. It was a tall task given the conference’s two-school membership, the steep financial costs of prying universities away from the Mountain West and the presumed desire to remain competitive as close to a power conference level as possible. With the announced additions of Boise State, San Diego State, Fresno State and Colorado State, though, the league secured the top football programs out west not already tied to a power league. That is a significant building block for a conference that should be at the front of the Group of Five (Six?) line for an automatic College Football Playoff berth in the years to come.
The biggest question facing the rebuilding conference is now which two schools will join the party and bring the Pac-12’s membership up to the NCAA’s minimum requirement of eight. The conference has no stated desire to expand far beyond that number and instead could settle around the nine-team mark, which would allow for an eight-game football schedule with room for four non-conference games per year — one of the two standard formats employed by leagues across the country.
The American Athletic Conference is once again in danger of having its top brands poached. In addition to the Texas schools, which reside in highly attractive television markets and bring varying degrees of football success to the table, Group of Five powers like Memphis, Tulane and USF would be home-run additions for a conference that could become somewhat of a “G5 all-star team.”
Time, for once, is on the Pac-12’s side. The 2026 academic year is the deadline to reach the eight-team mark, and that is plenty of time to engage in discussions with the aforementioned schools or to see if the dream scenario unfolds. That is, chaos in the ACC, which could send Stanford and California seeking asylum in their old league.
This conference is still playing quality football, by the way. The Beavers and Cougars were in two of the most notable games on college football’s Week 3 slate, and the latter team prevailed against one of the Pac-12’s former schools. Washington State emerged victorious from a thrilling installment of the Apple Cup to improve to 3-0 on the year and stick it to the in-state rival that helped to dismantle the tradition of West Coast college football.
“If you can’t get behind this team, in this moment, at this time, I just don’t know what else more we can do,” Washington State coach Jake Dickert said, via CougFan.com. “Because these guys stayed here for this. For this moment. To bring that trophy back to Pullman.”
FINAL NOTES
UNLV is one of the eight Mountain West schools left behind in Pac-12 expansion, and it sent a clear message to the conference with a road win at Kansas. The Rebels picked up their first top-25 ranking in program history when they cracked the Coaches Poll on the heels of that massive 23-20 victory, and they have the makings of a College Football Playoff squad as the potential Mountain West champion. The Pac-12 is undoubtedly on notice.
It may have been a non-conference game, but Arizona appeared a clear step behind the Big 12 title contenders with its 31-7 loss at Kansas State. Even with another monster performance from wide receiver Tetairoa McMillan (11 catches, 138 yards), Brent Brennan’s squad could not keep pace and fell out of the rankings as a result.
The injury to Utah quarterback Cam Rising remains a key factor in the playoff race. The Utes were pitiful offensively last season without their veteran signal-caller, and until freshman Isaac Wilson settled down in an eventual win over Utah State, they looked like a conference title afterthought in Saturday’s in-state battle.
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UCLA is a mess early in the DeShaun Foster era. The Bruins had two weeks to prepare for Indiana yet were doomed from the start in a 42-13 drubbing on their home field. They totaled just 238 yards in the contest and may be the Big Ten’s worst team in 2024.
