Pac-12 football: Ranking the champions from the expansion era (Washington is No. 1, just not this team)
A week after toppling Oregon in the Pac-12 title game, Washington stands alone. The 2023 conference champions are the only team of the Pac-12’s expansion era to produce a perfect regular season.
The Huskies are 13-0, but are they No. 1?
Are they the best of the 13 teams to win the Pac-12 championship game?
To provide context for judging the Huskies – and putting a bow on Pac-12 football – the Hotline examined the resumes of the championship game winners.
The teams are listed below in the order we would seed them for a mythical Pac-12 Tournament of Champions.
Notes:
• Only five schools have won the title: Oregon (four), Washington (three), Stanford (three), Utah (two) and USC (one).
• Bowl games/playoff results are not included in order to create an apple-to-apples comparison with 2023 Washington, which doesn’t have postseason results yet.
• The point differentials are for conference play only (and include the championship game).
• Rankings are taken from the end-of-season AP polls, except for 2023 Washington, with which the current AP poll has been used.
Here we go.
(Thanks in advance for your complete agreement.)
1. Washington 2016
Record: 12-1 overall/8-1 conference
Champ game result: Washington 41, Colorado 10
Ranked wins: No. 12 Stanford, No. 17 Colorado, No. 23 Utah
Losses: No. 3 USC
Pac-12 point differential: +236
Quarterback: Jake Browning
Top players: WR John Ross, DB Budda Baker
Comment: The best defense of the Pac-12 era with a dominant line and sensational secondary. (Vita Vea was merely the unit’s fifth- or sixth-best player.) The offense wasn’t as powerful as the teams listed below, but it was plenty good enough with Ross and tailback Myles Gaskin, plus a terrific line. The Huskies rolled against all but three opponents, and their lone loss came to a USC team that was as good as any in the country once Sam Darnold took over at quarterback.
2. Oregon 2014
Record: 12-1 overall/8-1 conference
Champ game result: Oregon 51, Arizona 13
Ranked wins: No. 5 Michigan State, No. 10 UCLA, No. 19 Arizona, No. 21 Utah
Losses: No. 19 Arizona
Pac-12 point differential: +208
Quarterback: Marcus Mariota
Top players: TB Royce Freeman, DL DeForest Buckner
Comment: The best Oregon team of the era featured the Heisman Trophy winner (Mariota) and an offense that averaged 45 points per game. The Ducks had an opportunistic defense (34 turnovers forced) and ended with five consecutive blowout wins. The early-October loss to Arizona, on a Thursday night, came without three starting offensive linemen.
3. Washington 2023
Record: 13-0 overall/9-0 conference
Champ game result: Washington 34, Oregon 31
Ranked wins (current): No. 5 Oregon (twice), No. 15 Arizona, No. 20 Oregon State
Losses: None
Pac-12 point differential: +79
Comment: The undefeated Huskies produced the best regular season of the era but struggled with three sub-.500 teams (Arizona State, Stanford and WSU) and won seven games by a touchdown or less. Their resourcefulness was off the charts, and the defense improved immensely over the course of the season. But if we’re betting on a team to win the mythical tournament, these Huskies wouldn’t be our first (or second) choice.
4. Oregon 2011
Record: 11-2 overall/8-1 conference
Champ game result: Oregon 49, UCLA 31
Ranked wins: No. 7 Stanford
Losses: No. 2 LSU, No. 6 USC
Pac-12 point differential: +208
Quarterback: Darron Thomas
Top players: TB LaMichael James, DL Dion Jordan
Comment: The loss total is a tad misleading in that the Ducks dropped their opener to an LSU team that went on the play for the BCS championship. This was arguably the best of Chip Kelly’s powerhouse teams with a top-five offense (nationally) and top-35 defense, plus a playmaking tandem – James and De’Anthony Thomas – rarely matched in recent conference history. The 2012 Ducks were fabulous, as well, but didn’t win the North because of a head-to-head loss to Stanford.
5. Stanford 2015
Record: 11-2 overall/8-1 conference
Champ game result: Stanford 41, USC 22
Ranked wins: No. 11 Notre Dame
Losses: No. 19 Oregon, No. 23 Northwestern
Pac-12 point differential: +168
Quarterback: Kevin Hogan
Top players: TB Christian McCaffrey, LB Blake Martinez
Comment: If not for a season-opening loss at Northwestern (kickoff: 9 a.m. Pacific), the Cardinal would have made the playoff. This Stanford team wasn’t as dominant on defense as the 2012-13 conference champions, but McCaffrey and tight end Austin Hooper supercharged the offense.
6. USC 2017
Record: 11-2 overall/8-1 conference
Champ game result: USC 31, Stanford 28
Ranked wins: No. 20 Stanford
Losses: No. 11 Notre Dame, Washington State
Pac-12 point differential: +121
Quarterback: Sam Darnold
Top players: TB Ronald Jones, LB Uchenna Nwosu
Comment: USC’s only Pac-12 champion – nobody would have guessed that would be the case when the conference first split into divisions – had Darnold in the lineup all season and a defense that knew how to tackle. The loss at WSU came on a Friday night after a road game at Cal. In other words, the Trojans were one of several elite teams in the Pac-12 era kneecapped by inane conference scheduling policies.
7. Stanford 2012
Record: 11-2 overall/8-1 conference
Champ game result: Stanford 27, UCLA 24
Ranked wins: No. 2 Oregon, No. 20 Oregon State, No. 21 San Jose State
Losses: No. 4 Notre Dame, Washington
Pac-12 point differential: +110
Quarterback: Kevin Hogan
Top players: TE Zach Ertz, LB Trent Murphy
Comment: The first Stanford team of the post-Andrew Luck era had a wobbly start but found its groove once Hogan entered the lineup. The defense produced an epic performance in Eugene, holding Oregon to 14 points in a massive upset that kept the Ducks from winning the division and playing for the BCS title.
8. Oregon 2019
Record: 11-2 overall/8-1 conference
Champ game result: Oregon 37, Utah 15
Ranked wins: No. 16 Utah
Losses: No. 14 Auburn, Arizona State
Pac-12 point differential: +166
Quarterback: Justin Herbert
Top players: OL Penei Sewell, DB Jevon Holland
Comment: The Ducks were on track for the playoff until a stunning November loss to unranked ASU, and that performance impacted our overall view of Mario Cristobal’s best team in Eugene. Only three of 10 conference matchups were close: The loss at ASU and wins over the Washington schools on back-to-back Saturdays in the middle of the season.
9. Stanford 2013
Record: 11-2 overall/7-2 conference
Champ game result: Stanford 38, ASU 14
Ranked wins: No. 9 Oregon, No. 16 UCLA, No. 21 ASU (twice), No. 25 Washington
Losses: No. 19 USC, Utah
Pac-12 point differential: +148
Quarterback: Kevin Hogan
Top players: OL David Yankey, LB Trent Murphy
Comment: Considering the number of wins over ranked opponents, this Stanford team has the resume to justify a higher position. But the loss at Utah, which went 2-7 in conference play, gave us pause. This was the Cardinal’s post-Luck, pre-McCaffrey era when the defense dominated and the offense deployed a ground-and-pound approach.
10. Utah 2022
Record: 10-3 overall/7-2 conference
Champ game result: Utah 47, USC 24
Ranked wins: No. 12 USC (twice), No. 17 Oregon State
Losses: No. 15 Oregon, No. 21 UCLA, Florida
Pac-12 point differential: +164
Quarterback: Cam Rising
Top players: TE Dalton Kincaid, DB Clark Phillips III
Comment: Utah opened the season as the Pac-12 favorite, handled the pressure, beat USC twice and used superb balance (run-pass balance and offense-defense balance) to defend its 2021 title. We graded this as the better of Utah’s two champions, in part because the conference was stronger in ’22 after fully emerging from the impact of the pandemic.
11. Washington 2018
Record: 10-3 overall/7-2 conference
Champ game result: Washington 10, Utah 3
Ranked wins: No. 10 Washington State
Losses: Auburn, Oregon, Cal
Pac-12 point differential: +80
Quarterback: Jake Browning
Top players: OL Kaleb McGary, DB Byron Murphy
Comment: The single win over a ranked opponent reflects a down season for the conference, just as the three losses to unranked opponents reflect a flawed champion. The Huskies were stout on defense but didn’t possess the scoring punch to warrant a higher position.
12. Utah 2021
Record: 10-3 overall/8-1 conference
Champ game result: Utah 38, Oregon 10
Ranked wins: No. 22 Oregon (twice)
Losses: No. 19 BYU, No. 25 San Diego State, Oregon State
Pac-12 point differential: +181
Quarterback: Cam Rising
Top players: TB Tavion Thomas, LB Devin Lloyd
Comment: The best team in a bad conference needed several weeks to find its quarterback and endured the in-season death of Aaron Lowe. But the Utes emerged from the tragedy unified and won nine of their final 10, including two blowout wins over Oregon in the final three weeks.
13. Oregon 2020
Record: 4-2 overall/4-2 conference
Champ game result: Oregon 31, USC 24
Ranked wins: No. 21 USC
Losses: Oregon State, Cal
Pac-12 point differential: +28
Quarterback: Tyler Shough
Top players: OL Alex Forsyth, DL Kayvon Thibodeaux
Comment: These Ducks should be judged by a different standard because of the pandemic season and advanced to the title game because Washington, which won the division, was unable to participate. They’re listed here but could easily be handed a parting gift and nudged aside to create an even number of teams for the tournament of champions.