'Slept-on conference': Oregon football reflects on final dramatic game of Pac-12 rivals

LAS VEGAS – If the Pac-12 had to come to an end, what an end Friday was.

Two of the best teams in conference history and heated rivals vying for a College Football Playoff and national title hopes in a rematch in front of a sold-out crowd at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas. All after one of the most competitive conference seasons since the over-century-old institution expanded to 12 teams in 2011.

A competitive final season for Pac-12 teams

At one point the Pac-12 had eight teams ranked in the AP Poll before the conference cannibalized itself in typical fashion, led by the undefeated Huskies and one-loss Ducks, who played the college football game of the year in October in Seattle – a 36-33 Washington victory.

The Pac-12 didn’t lose a college football game to a nonconference opponent until Week 2 and went 29-7 over the course of the season against non-Pac-12 opponents. Seven teams went unbeaten against teams not in the Pac-12.

Arizona, once overlooked after an early season loss to Mississippi State and then back-to-back losses to Washington and USC, made a quarterback change and became one of the hottest teams in the country, rising as high as No. 15 in the College Football Playoff rankings and sitting now at 9-3.

Utah got a signature win against Florida in Salt Lake City and Colorado made an early season splash after defeating defending national runner-up TCU in Week 1 – all with former all-pro Deion Sanders leading the helm. USC, once thought to be conference favorites, overcame a porous defense to start fast, but faltered with reigning Heisman trophy winner Caleb Williams performing weekly theatrics that weren’t quite good enough down the stretch.

Washington edges Oregon in Pac-12 championship game

But Friday night in Las Vegas, it came down to the two teams that seemingly were destined to meet since that fateful matchup at Husky Stadium, with Washington defeating Oregon for a second time in yet another 3-point victory, 34-31, to complete an undefeated season and become the first Pac-12 team to make the College Football Playoff since 2016.

Friday’s matchup lived up to the billing and then some, with Oregon overcoming a 20-3 deficit and scoring three consecutive touchdowns to take a brief lead, before Washington overtook the Ducks late.

Oregon's Jeffrey Bassa, Bo Nix and Dan Lanning on playing last Pac-12 game

With conference alignment forcing a near-collapse of the Pac-12, with just Washington State and Oregon State remaining in the historic conference, Oregon and Washington reflected on playing in the final game between Pac-12 teams after the title game.

“I’m so blessed and grateful to play in this conference,” Oregon linebacker and Salt Lake City-native Jeffrey Bassa said. “This conference is full of amazing players, I feel like we’re a very slept-on conference, we play some great football on the West Coast. The amount of quarterbacks that I’ve seen this year from week-to-week was insane. The great teams, the great history behind these games with all these rivalries being shut down and all these schools moving to different conferences, I’m so blessed and grateful to be a part of this history.”

Oregon quarterback Bo Nix, a former Auburn quarterback and Alabama-native, had a similar respect for the conference after two seasons in Eugene.

“It means a lot,” Nix said. “The Pac-12 has been a historical conference for a long time. I don’t know what necessarily the future holds or what it looks like, but to have the year we had with the Pac-12 and have the conference as talented as it was for the last one, it’s a huge respect level for the whole entire Pac-12, for every team. I don’t know what it looks like moving forward, but I know there’s a lot of good teams in this region and conference.”

On that stage Friday night, the Pac-12 put together one last dramatic flourish. There wasn’t a fan dressed as a referee that snuck on the field. Nor a coach comparing a postgame scene to Woodstock. The game even ended before midnight Eastern Time and was on a network everyone could watch.

It was just two teams, competing at the pinnacle of the sport for the final time as Pac-12 members, but not the final time as conference opponents, with both Oregon and Washington heading to the Big Ten to continue the West Coast’s best rivalry. The Ducks and Huskies will meet again at Autzen Stadium next November.

“This was a great year for this conference,” Oregon coach Dan Lanning said. “I think you saw a lot of really good football in this conference this year. That’s the piece you’ll miss.”

Alec Dietz covers University of Oregon football, volleyball, women’s basketball and baseball for The Register-Guard. You may reach him at adietz@registerguard.com and you can follow him on Twitter @AlecDietz.

This article originally appeared on Register-Guard: End of Pac-12 conference: Oregon football players, Dan Lanning react