Who the hell is going to win the Pac-12 South?

At this point in the season, we typically have some clarity in division races. We already know what the SEC championship is going to be. The Big Ten East champion is probably going to be either Ohio State or Michigan. Clemson is going to win the ACC Atlantic. Sure, the ACC Coastal is a mess, but that’s pretty much always the case.

After Arizona State’s 38-20 win over Utah, the division is in total chaos. Four different teams have three conference losses, and the other two have four.

So who’s going to actually win this dang thing? Let’s unpack it.

Yup, the same Arizona State we all spent the offseason making fun of for hiring Herm Edwards and his silly, (mostly) out of context quotes that made it seem like he didn’t understand how college football worked. But after some close losses, the Sun Devils might have hit their stride, knocking off USC and Utah in consecutive weeks.

Arizona State’s remaining schedule isn’t easy. They host UCLA and have to travel to Oregon and Arizona. ESPN’s FPI gives them just a 6.1% chance of winning out. It’s more likely they finish like, 7-5 or 6-6, but for now, if they win out, they’re in.

Utah is probably the “best” team in this division. They sit 19th in S&P+, far and away better than the next closest team (USC at 43rd). They’ve been the most consistent, they do defense better than most other division teams do just about anything, and they’ve only got two Pac-12 games left to go. But those games aren’t cakewalks (Oregon, at Colorado), and they just lost their starting quarterback, Tyler Huntley, for the season with a broken collarbone.

Utah wasn’t exactly an offensive powerhouse with Huntley, but after star recruit Jack Tuttle decided to transfer, the Utes are down to redshirt freshman Jason Shelly under center. If they manage to beat the Ducks and Buffaloes and if Arizona State stumbles, they’ll take the crown, regardless of what happens in their season finale against BYU, since they own individual tiebreakers against Arizona and USC. But without Huntley, that may be a tall order.

Before the season, I was really high on the Wildcats. With so many returning defensive starters, Kevin Sumlin coaching, and with Khalil Tate returning, I thought they could be a top 25 team. Then they lost to a listless BYU team at home to open the year, got their asses kicked by Houston the following week, and we all forgot about them.

But Arizona has quietly improved. Their formally punchless offense has dropped 40 in consecutive weeks, as the Ducks clobbered Oregon and beat Colorado.

They have the toughest remaining schedule, with a trip to top-ten Washington State, and their season finale against Arizona State. But if they win out and Utah and USC lose at least once, they’re back in business.

USC should be the driver’s seat for this division just about every year, given their recruiting advantages, but youth at quarterback, injuries, and just plain ol’ ineffectiveness have rendered this year’s Trojan squad completely mediocre.

And YET, they have perhaps the easiest remaining schedule (vs Cal, at UCLA), own a tiebreaker over Arizona, and could back into this with a bit of luck. They’ll need Arizona State to lose to either UCLA or Oregon and Utah to stumble again. Their offense looked a little better against Oregon State, which could either be because Clay Helton took over playcalling duties, or because they played Oregon State.

Also, the math gets even more complicated if we end up with a three-way tie for the division. That’s unlikely, but so is everything else that’s happened in this league so far, but let’s hope that doesn’t happen.

If you want to see a four-loss team in the Rose Bowl, this might be your year. Hell, that Pac-12 South winner might just end up playing Northwestern, a team that lost to Akron and Duke.

We live in special times.