Analysis: Pac-12 teams are once again doing their part to push each other out of college football's playoff picture thanks to Oregon's 45-30 win over UCLA, Chuck Culpepper writes.
The annual shedding of the American West for the playoff has intensified again, and it’s a thrilling bummer again, with the games often thrilling and the upshot always a bummer. The teams of the Pac-12 are well into their annual rite of elbowing each other out of the national picture, robbing the playoff and the nation of verve and variety and the kinds of banal inter-regional discussions that improve life in America.
That’s when one Jayden Daniels completed 22 of 32 passes for 408 yards and three touchdowns for the Sun Devils, the same Jayden Daniels who just went 21 for 28 and rushed 23 times for 121 yards as LSU reached 6-2 by pounding No. 7 Mississippi, 45-20, and reminding again that Brian Kelly is one magnificent football coach.The other renowned Kelly, UCLA’s Chip, sat at a forlorn little interview table in Eugene, Ore., where he used to work, and gamely spoke of the 545 total yards on the other side.
He also said, “I had not seen Bo Nix in person,” and then he said it had been impressive to see the Oregon quarterback who used to be the Auburn quarterback and whose dad also used to be the Auburn quarterback, all of which would make it hard for a certain fan base if Nix were to steer Oregon into the playoff after skedaddling from Auburn after three seasons.
Luckily for Auburn fans, who may have had enough displeasure, that doesn’t happen in our West-less playoff ritual. At least Nix is something to see, as were these numbers: 22 for 28 for 283 with five touchdown passes and zero interceptions, 107 rushing yards for Bucky Irving, eight catches for 132 yards and two touchdowns for Troy Franklin, and whatever the astronomical decibels of the great Autzen Stadium, one of the country’s great noise harbors.
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