This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
So … does anybody want to win the Pac-12 South?
Anyone?
You get the sense that all of the teams "battling" for the division title have seen the No. 4 Oregon Ducks play, and want to avoid the embarrassment of getting steamrolled in the inaugural title game — probably in Eugene — on Dec. 2.
The Arizona State Sun Devils, so in control of the division race a month ago, have lost three of their last four, most recently to Washington State, and put coach Dennis Erickson on the hot seat again. Coach Rick Neuheisel knows the feeling at UCLA, where the Bruins blew their chance to move into a first-place tie by losing miserably at Utah — their third straight road loss, with the offense looking worse and worse each time.
"Nobody seems to want to grab and take it," Erickson said.
The USC Trojans are the only team really looking like they want to win the division, and, of course, they're ineligible for the title game because they cheated their tails off.
Heck, it's so bad that the Utes still have a shot.
The Utes!
The team with four league losses and no real quarterback.
And their road to the title game isn't even all that daunting. Win their last two games against Washington State and Colorado (combined record: 6-15), have Arizona State lose its last two to rival Arizona and Cal (seemingly unlikely, but the Sun Devils did just lose to UCLA and Washington State), and have the Bruins lose to either Colorado (unlikely) or USC (lock of the century).
See?
That's hardly implausible, and serves to illustrate that the South Division simply isn't very good outside of the Trojans, who have won five of their last six games in convincing fashion, with the only loss in triple-overtime to then No. 4 Stanford.
"The north's really strong," Washington coach Steve Sarkisian said. "That's just the facts of it."
The facts also state that the Pac-12 could potentially endure the embarrassment of having one of its divisional champions fail to qualify for a bowl game.
Really, it could happen.
The Bruins will become the South Division representative in the title game if they at least split their last two games, and have Arizona State and Utah each lose at least once. In that case, they would be 6-6 heading into the title game, where a loss would leave them 6-7 and ineligible for a bowl.
The team would have to appeal to the NCAA Leadership Council for an exception, a league official said, and probably would not be granted one until all of the available 6-6 teams around the country were slotted into bowl games first.
"It would be different, for sure," Oregon State's Mike Riley said. "That's not what you would expect from what would be a divisional champion."
But that's how it is, here in the South.