Lets say Penn State goes undefeated next season - along with 4 other teams in various conferences. One undefeated team will be left out of the playoffs. Now when you look at the conferences, I can see someone arguing that the Big 10 is weak, cmon, Rutgers, Illinois, Indy ... etc etc. We've been saying this exact thing about other teams schedules this whole cycle, such as Oklahoma or Bama - just because there are some bottom wrung teams in a conference, doesn't make that conference weak - it just is what it is. Every winning program has wins on their schedules that people point at - this is why a 8 or 16 team format is needed.
Lets say Penn State goes undefeated next season - along with 4 other teams in various conferences. One undefeated team will be left out of the playoffs. Now when you look at the conferences, I can see someone arguing that the Big 10 is weak, cmon, Rutgers, Illinois, Indy ... etc etc. We've been saying this exact thing about other teams schedules this whole cycle, such as Oklahoma or Bama - just because there are some bottom wrung teams in a conference, doesn't make that conference weak - it just is what it is. Every winning program has wins on their schedules that people point at - this is why a 8 or 16 team format is needed.
If that happens, I think the consensus among most experts is the Pac-12 would be left out. It just seems like from top to bottom, they are the one that all of the journalists, experts, whatever you want to call them think it's the weakest of the conferences.
That is, unless USC wins it. As Southern has said in the past, some schools just have a reputation and USC is one of them. if they were to win the Pac-12, they would get the benefit of the doubt.
