A 9-game conference schedule isn’t why the Pac-12 is out of the Playoff

After Stanford lost to Oregon and Utah lost to Arizona last week, the Pac-12 has been all but eliminated from this year’s College Football Playoff. The conference could very well end up with 10 bowl teams, but given that every team has at least two losses, the Playoff is essentially out of reach.

According to some, including Oregon coach Mark Helfrich, that’s due in part to the nine-game conference schedule.

“The way that the Pac-12 schedule is set up is ... putting itself in the worst possible situation to have that happen and that’s just a fact, it’s not good, bad or indifferent, it’s a fact,” Helfrich said. “Until that’s addressed we’re in that situation.”

That has led to some calls for the Pac-12 to ditch its nine-game schedule for an eight-game schedule. The argument is that the nine-game schedule leads to fewer undefeated teams and makes everyone’s schedules too tough. But according to the S&P+ rankings, the teams of the two leagues with nine-game schedules have combined to play the easiest schedules so far.

Even just looking at the potential contenders this season, none has taken a significant strength of schedule hit from the nine-game schedule. Stanford lost to a non-conference team and a divisional opponent that it would have had to play regardless of whether the Pac-12 had an eight-game or nine-game schedule. Utah has lost to two divisional opponents. USC has the most legitimate gripe, having lost to two non-division opponents, but the Trojans also lost to Notre Dame in their non-conference slate.

The real reason the Pac-12 isn’t going to have a Playoff team this year is that it doesn’t have any teams good enough to make the Playoff. That’s according to a number of advanced statistical rating systems that rank teams based on their overall performances, not their win-loss records against who they have happened to play.

No ratings have any Pac-12 team in the top four, and only FEI has one close. If a Pac-12 team were a bit better, then it would likely have fewer losses and would have no trouble making the Playoff. Just take Oregon, which made the Playoff as the No. 2 seed last year, as proof.

For his part, Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott pretty much dismissed the nine-game schedule criticism.

“I don’t think it will get revisited based on what happens in one year,” he said. “Our philosophy of taking on all comers ... is good for the student-athletes who only have a guaranteed 12 games per year, the schools that want to play each other as much as possible, and what’s good for our fans.

“Very, very low on the totem pole is what’s best to get a team in the playoff.”

The Playoff was designed to take the four best teams, and thus far, nine-game schedules haven’t prohibited it from achieving that goal. If we want to reward every conference champion, which is not necessarily a bad goal, then there needs to be an eight-game playoff. But for the purposes of this postseason structure, the Pac-12 does not deserve a playoff spot. The length of the conference schedule has nothing to do with it.