Update #2 >> It's now official. Washington has informed the PAC-12 that they will not be able to play in the championship game, meaning Oregon will take their place. Washington had dropped below the minimum number of scholarship players available.
Who Colorado will play now is unclear.
Update #1 >> Washington has agreed to a noon PST deadline today to update the PAC_12 office on their status for Friday's championship game, Mike Vorel tweets
Original article:
A 20-point fourth quarter comeback against rival UCLA over the weekend helped Clay Helton and USC punch their ticket to the Pac-12 title game.
USC is set to face Washington on Friday night, December 18th. Normally, that's a pretty cut-and-dry situation, but that's where things get interesting.
The PAC-12 has a backup plan in case one of the chosen teams are unable participate in the title game. In the event that Washington cannot play, Oregon would be the replacement, and if USC were unable to play, Colorado would replace the Trojans.
Washington was unable to play their game last weekend at Oregon due to a COVID outbreak.
What really complicates this situation is that the PAC-12 has not issued a deadline for Washington to declare that they're unable to play. If there's a glimmer of hope that they're able to play, or let's say a situation emerges where they're awaiting the latest round of their COVID test results, the Huskies could realistically hold out until Thursday before making a decision on whether they're able to play.
On the testing front, all teams are testing early this week, and will hopefully have results from those later today to provide a clearer picture.
In the meantime, the USC staff in a really unique predicament. How does a staff prepare for two opponents in such a short window?
Asked about the situation today, Clay Helton shared that the Trojans will prepare mostly for Washington. Today and tomorrow were all focused on the Huskies, and tonight the staff will begin Oregon Prep.
This is a situation where the support staff really kick things into overdrive. The staff will do their thing as usual, but behind the scenes graduate assistants and analysts will be working around the clock crunching data and helping to develop game plans that will have them covered in the event they play either team.
Does that tip the scaled in favor of a Washington or Oregon, who had an extra week to prepare for this kind of scenario because their game against each other was canceled last weekend? On that topic, Helton simply responded, "Sometimes it falls your way, sometimes it doesn’t."
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