Utah's Loss Has Big Implications for Stanford

Russ Isabella-USA TODAY Sports

In this edition of Cardinal CounTree, Matt Vassar discusses what a Utah loss means to Stanford and picks who he'd prefer the Cardinal to play in the Pac-12 Championship game. He also covers Stanford's decisive win over Washington and talks about the record-breaking performances by Kevin Hogan and Christian McCaffrey.

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Comments

I would take

Utah in the championship game.

USC is showing signs of resurgence under their interim coach; and although I think we could beat them again, it would be a dog fight.

UCLA is also looking better and thumped Cal in a big way last Thursday.

Frankly, playing the LA schools once a year is enough. Bring on the Utes.

Nice piece again, Matt!

Well done.

The highest ranking team: Utes

Unemotionally, the Utes would give us best strength of schedule.
If Utes and USC each win out now, who goes to title game? Utah because of fewer losses, or USC on the head to head?
TV wants Stanford USC for ratings, but playing Utes resolves Stanford dominance of Pac12, so no one says - "hey, you didn’t play Utah."

Utah would win

USC has losses to UW and Stanford while Utah would only have the loss to USC. Overall conference record compared to the rest of your division is the first tie-breaker, followed by head-to-head, and then the intradivision record.

Now if Utah were to lose one more game, say against UCLA, then the Battle of LA would determine the division winner (assuming the Bruins don’t lose to CU, OSU, or Wazzu).

Lost in this is ASU, which could win the division if they win out (including against the Ducks tonight), Utah loses one more game, and USC loses to UCLA.

Correct

At this point in the season, only Utah controls its own destiny in the south. Win out, and they play for the Pac-12 championship. Their biggest obstacle is UCLA in SLC; otherwise, the schedule looks friendly.

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