Canzano: Pac-12 championship pairing is the 'Super Bowl' of lies: USC deserves a rematch with Oregon before 6-6 UCLA. Blame Reggie Bush. Blame Pete Carroll. Blame a lousy system that penalizes those who did nothing wrong. But we all suffer.
EUGENE -- Someone dropped a single red rose in the tunnel that led from the Autzen Stadium field to the University of Oregon locker room on Saturday. It sat on the ground. Players walked around it. And right about now, I wish a back-alley whipping of UCLA next Friday wasn't all that stood between Oregon and a date with that flower.
It was Ducks 49, Beavers 21 on Saturday. The game ended, and plans began immediately for the Pacific-12 Conference championship game. Schedules were set. The ticket office that gambled and mailed out championship tickets last week breathed easy. But there's an undeniable truth that followed Oregon out of the stadium -- it's getting the wrong opponent in this so-called conference championship game.
Blame Reggie Bush. Blame Pete Carroll. Blame NCAA legislation that penalizes those who had nothing to do with any of the transgressions. But while you're doing that, please give us USC-Oregon for all the marbles.
UCLA? Seriously? Coach Chip Kelly wins 10 Super Bowls in a single season and gets this booby prize, gimme game offered as his 11th Super Bowl?
Doesn't Larry Scott know the Super Bowl is kind of a big deal around here?
Scott's done a great job with conference expansion but this title game featuring a 6-6 entrant is his Edsel. Didn't anyone in Scott's office think to include a back-up provision should one of the division winners not be above .500?
The Bruins are 6-6. Five of those conference losses are by 25 or more points. They got beat 50-0 by USC on Saturday and squeezed past Oregon State by only eight points earlier this season. And so the first conference championship game, promised to be laced with all kinds of pageantry, no doubt, ends with the losing coach shaking hands, then getting fired on his way out of the building with his non-bowl-eligible team.
UCLA in the Pac-12 championship game is like ketchup on pancakes.
Makes no sense.
USC beat both Oregon and UCLA and it's the Trojans, not the Bruins, who should be in this game. USC is the No. 1 contender in the Pac-12, and the only conference team in the last 21 tries to beat Oregon. With UCLA included, this championship event is a sham.
I know, the Trojans have that bowl ban, but I challenge anyone to look at how this has played out and not believe it's a shame that Lane Kiffin's team won't play in the conference title game. We all deserve better than UCLA-Oregon.
I asked Kelly if he wanted another shot at the Trojans, which beat the Ducks by a missed field goal a week ago. Kelly thought, then said he doesn't deal in hypotheticals. Then, he pointed out that, if they asked him to, he'd play the conference championship game in Fairbanks, Alaska.
Hypothetically, of course.
"Stanford has only one loss; that's the team that really has a gripe," Kelly added.
No. Wrong. We all have a gripe, coach. Every one of us who followed a single moment of this Pac-12 season. Because they're going to package up this phony first conference championship game as if it were some kind of true playoff game. We're going to be told that these are the teams that best represent their respective divisions. And it's going to be offered as some kind of closure for the regular season.
Basically, the title game's pants are on fire.
Yes, the conference regulations dictate that the team that wins the Northern Division (Oregon) shall play the team that wins the Southern Division (UCLA, barely) but let's get real. Without USC, what we have is a booby-prize game. This isn't politics. This is sport. The best two teams should play for the automatic berth, and that means Oregon-USC.
Let's see. The Bruins got here by virtue of a tiebreaker, a USC bowl ban, and the fact that they didn't have to play Oregon in the regular season. Which is only to say they are going to be ushered into Autzen Stadium next Friday, and they'll look around, see the shiny championship trophy, and all the fans screaming, and smile, just before they realize that this whole thing is a set-up and they're the meal.
In the event that a division winner is not above .500, the conference should just take the best two teams with the best records. Divisions work just fine for scheduling purposes. It creates order. But as long as we're complaining that we can't get No. 1 vs. No. 2 in the national championship, why not try to do it in our own little chest-puffing contest out west?
Oregon stomps UCLA and ends all debate?
Wrong.
The Ducks win by 28, and go to the Rose Bowl with the Trojans snickering into the offseason. (Wait. They're already snickering, with a promise post-game that the road to the national championship still goes through campus.) Also, Stanford is sitting with only one loss, wondering what another crack at the Ducks would have looked like. And UCLA leaves with a 6-7 record, and, ironically, is then officially as eligible to play in a postseason bowl game as USC.
The conference suits can put linen on the tables and call it a "championship game" but there's no chance the Bruins play Oregon any closer than Oregon State managed.
It's another Super Bore for Kelly's team.
I was told that tight end David Paulson was the player who was first handed that rose by a fan. I doubt it. He doesn't drop anything. But, hey, I get it, a fan passed that rose to some Ducks player as he walked through the tunnel. And I understand that said player looked into his hands, realized that if he was dumb enough to bring a rose into Kelly's locker room that he'd promptly have his fingernails peeled off.
The Duck dropped the thing right there.
No worries.
I'm sure it will still be there on Friday night to be picked up.
