Well, Jimmy Lake can claim a Pac-12 North Division Championship in his first year as Washington’s head coach (assuming the rest of the Pac-12 games are played this weekend), and that can’t be taken away from him. But I suspect he’d put it on the line to play the Oregon Ducks Saturday in Eugene to settle it once and for all.
The Huskies (3-1) will be crowned as North Champions even though their game with Oregon (3-2) was declared a "no contest" Thursday afternoon by the Pac-12. That’s due to Washington “not having the minimum number of scholarship student-athletes available for the game due to a number of positive football student-athlete COVID-19 cases and resulting isolation of additional football student-athletes under contact tracing protocols,” per the issued Pac-12 statement.
Lake said it himself during his coaches show Wednesday night that the situation ‘wouldn’t sit right with me’ if they couldn’t play Saturday yet made it to the Pac-12 Championship game, yet here we stand. That’s the situation that has unfolded.
Because of that situation, the guys from Dawgman.com - Kim Grinolds, Chris Fetters, and Scott Eklund - talk about the cancellation, next steps, and whether or not the Huskies will even be healthy enough to play a game in a week’s time. The Pac-12 Championship game is scheduled for Friday, December 18.
In short, one of us believes there’s still a chance UW plays in that game, while the other two are following Lake’s own words Wednesday night when he said if Washington couldn’t play Oregon, they probably wouldn’t be able to play in the Pac-12 Championship Game.
And if you believe the Seattle Times report that has the Huskies well below the 53-man threshold to be able to play the game, you can draw your own conclusions.
Grinolds then brings up the original Pac-12 idea of playing a spring schedule. Could it work? Would the schools put their players through it after what they’ve just been through this fall?
After the break, the idea is also discussed pushing back the Pac-12 Championship Game, or Washington trying to come to an agreement with another school - could it be Oregon or Washington State? - to finish their season the following Sunday or Monday. Is that even possible? Would the media partners be able to move their schedules around to create compelling matchups if both teams were healthy and available to play by then? And what is the Pac-12 itself thinking about the matchups for December 19? At this point, they haven’t voted on what they’re going to do so it seems like all possibilities could be on the table.
Or what about extending the season by a week into Christmas? With the Pac-12 out of the Playoff conversation, is that something the conference should consider?
And what about bowl season? How many Pac-12 teams will even want to play a bowl game? Would the Huskies want to travel to Texas to play the Armed Forces Bowl during a pandemic?
So many questions; do the Dawgman guys have any reasonable answers?
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