The race to the PAC-12 Championship.

With Oregon beating Stanford and Arizona beating Utah, the race to the PAC-12 Championship was shaken up quite a bit. To get to the championship game:

• Stanford: Even though the Cardinals lost to Oregon, they still control their own destiny in reaching the PAC-12 Championship game. Beat Cal and they're in. If they lose to Cal, they'll need Oregon to lose both remaining games (USC, Oregon State).
• Oregon: Ducks needs to win out (against USC and Oregon State) and have Cal beat Stanford.
• Utah: Utes need to win out and have USC lose to either Oregon or UCLA.
• UCLA: Bruins need to win out (against Utah and USC).
• USC: Trojans need to either win out (against Oregon and UCLA), or if they lose to Oregon but beat UCLA, they will need Utah to lose to either UCLA or Colorado.

I'm sorry, WSU, but you can't make it to the PAC-12 Championship even if you win out.

If Oregon beats OSU and Cal beats Stanford, Oregon is in because in the three-way tie no one owns a head-to-head tie-breaker (Oregon beat Stanford, Stanford beat WSU, WSU beat Oregon), so the next step is the in-division record. By beating the Beavers, Oregon would own a 4-1 North division record while WSU and Stanford would hold a 3-2 record.

If Oregon loses to either USC or Oregon State, Cougars would be in a two-way tie with Stanford, but Stanford holds the head-to-head tie-breaker with the Cougars, so the Cardinals would go to the championship game.

Even though the Cougs can't make it to the championship game, everyone is impressed with how they recovered from that disastrous first game of the season against Portland State, to its best record in 12 years. (And speaking of Portland State, what a turnaround, from a 3-9 season to 8-2 and a very good chance to make the FCS playoffs, making the Coug loss to PSU less shocking.)