The most important 2023 conference game for every Pac-12 program this fall
Every Saturday is important, right? Every college football coach utters the same weekly cliche about how their team is taking it game-by-game, and no one 60 minutes is bigger than the next.
Folly.
That’s a fine sentiment for coaches and players, but for fans and media, some games are more significant than others — particularly in the final season of the four-team playoff.
The rest of this week, I’m looking at the most paramount conference games for each Power 5 program. I started with the SEC, and looked at the Big Ten yesterday. Today, I break down the Pac-12.
Reminder: A team’s most important game could be a rivalry. But it could also be a trap game on the schedule or potential upset spots. Just because one team’s most important game may be against your alma mater though, doesn’t mean it’s the most significant conference matchup for your favorite school.
The most important 2023 Pac-12 conference games:
Arizona — Nov. 25 at Arizona State
The Wildcats snapped a five-game losing streak to ASU last season in a 38-35 thriller. With improved coaching, recruiting and development, Jedd Fisch has Arizona trending in a much more positive direction. Conversely, rival Sun Devils new head coach Kenny Dillingham is in Year 1 of a complete teardown in Tempe.
With a preseason win total sitting at 5.5, Arizona’s regular-season finale at Arizona State (a place they haven’t won in 12 years) could be the game that determines whether Fisch can take the Wildcats bowling for the first time since 2017.
Arizona State — Oct. 7 vs. Colorado
While the Duel could in-state rival Arizona could certainly be Arizona State’s most important game in 2023, I’m eyeing a more interesting matchup two months earlier: Kenny Dillingham vs. Deion Sanders in a showdown between two first-year head coaches who have used the transfer portal more aggressively than anyone in CFB history.
Arizona State has 50 new players in the roster this fall. Colorado has close to 70. The early October matchup is a great opportunity to see the 2023 transfer portal demolition derby. Which program was better at evaluating the portal? By midseason, has either team asserted itself as something other than a Pac-12 cellar dweller this fall? We’ll find out.
Cal — Sept. 30 vs. Arizona State
The Bears are a fringe bowl team this fall, but the Pac-12 did Justin Wilcox little favors with one of the tougher schedules in the league.
Cal doesn’t play Colorado or Arizona, but it must travel to Washington, Oregon, Utah and UCLA. With just four conference home games, beating Arizona State to end September is paramount to the Bears’ hopes of making a bowl game for the first time since 2019.
The Bears and Sun Devils have only played each other four times in last decade, with ASU winning three of the meetings — including a 24-17 win in 2019.
Colorado — Oct. 13 vs. Stanford
Deion Sanders has engendered all sorts of optimism in Boulder this offseason, but reality could bite hard for a Buffs team undergoing such a stark overhaul so fast. Colorado has a brutal schedule in 2023, with back-to-back non-conference games vs. Nebraska and TCU to open the season before ending September with games against Oregon and USC.
Perhaps Colorado can win at Arizona State to start October, but a week later when Sanders squares off against another first-year Pac-12 head coach in Stanford’s Troy Taylor might be the Buffs’ best chance to win their first conference game in 2023.
Oregon — Nov. 11 vs. USC
The two favorites for the Pac-12 title will square off in early November in what could be the first of two games against the Pac-12’s two biggest brands.
Oregon and USC did not play each other in 2022, so preseason Heisman contenders Caleb Williams and Bo Nix will be featured in the likely primetime matchup. The Ducks have won four of the last five meetings in the series (including for the league title in 2020), and another victory would be a sour going-away present for the Trojans in their last season in the league.
Oregon State — Nov. 24 at Oregon
The Beavers and Ducks played a classic in 2022, with Jonathan Smith’s team rallying from a three-touchdown deficit in the fourth quater without barely attempting a pass. Oregon State ran inside zone umpteen times to upset Oregon to win the bitter rivalry formally known as the Civil War.
Oregon State has not won consecutive games in the series since 2006-07, and this season’s matchup should once again feature real conference stakes. It’s an awesome Black Friday entree the day after Thanksgiving, too.
Stanford — Nov. 18 vs. Cal
There are very few winnable games on Stanford’s schedule in 2023. The Cardinal have a current preseason win total at 2.5, while the Action Network’s betting analyst Collin Wilson has them as underdogs in all 12 games — including vs. FCS Sacramento State, the very school new head coach Troy Taylor left to coach at Stanford.
The Cardinal could go to Colorado in Week 6 and grab a potential W, but a victory over in-state rival Cal would be much more significant in Year 1 for Taylor. It’s his alma mater, and considering the Bears are eyeing a rebound season this fall, a win over Cal could give Stanford some much-needed good vibes entering a long offseason.
UCLA — Sept. 23 at Utah
While USC, Washington, Oregon and Utah are considered — in some order — the Top 4 teams in the Pac-12 in 2023, Chip Kelly’s Bruins have the potential roster and schedule to play spoiler in the conference, and perhaps even make the league title in its last year.
UCLA doesn’t draw Oregon or Washington on the schedule, and the back-half of its slate includes five very winnable games plus a crosstown trip to play at USC. If the Bruins can go to Salt Lake City and beat Utah — something they did for the first time in five years in 2022 — then they could be set up to make a real push for spot in the title game the second half of the season.
USC — Oct. 21 vs. Utah
The Trojans are the prohibitive preseason Pac-12 frontrunner, but in order to make that prediction come to fruition, they’ll need to get past a recent foe. USC lost twice to Utah in 2022, including the Pac-12 Championship.
The Utes also beat the Trojans in the Coliseum in 2021. Lincoln Riley’s team has a backloaded schedule this fall, with a six-week gauntlet that actually starts a week earlier at Notre Dame. The game against Utah kicks off five conference games — including four against the best four teams on USC’s slate in 2023. Beating the back-to-back conference champs could go a long way in determining who makes it to Las Vegas the first weekend of December.
Utah — Oct. 28 vs. Oregon
The Utes and the Ducks have won the last four Pac-12 titles, and both are hoping to contend for the league again in 2023. Utah plays at USC the week prior, so depending on what happens against the Trojans, Kyle Whittingham’s team could be looking at securing back-to-back huge wins — valeting the Utes to the top of the Pac-12 standings.
Or avoiding two straight losses that could stink their hopes for a three-peat. This has been a fairly even series the last 10 years, with Utah winning four of the matchups and losing by a combined five points in two other games.
Washington — Oct. 14 vs. Oregon
The Huskies spoiled Oregon’s hopes of making the Pac-12 title last season with a comeback win in Eugene and then beating Washington State in the Apple Cup — causing Dan Lanning’s Ducks to lose out on the conference tiebreaker to Utah.
This is a bitter rivalry that has seen plenty of close, gripping games (last four decided by 20 total points) in recent years. Both programs are jockeying to become the kings of the new-look Pac-12 in 2024, but Washington and Oregon have legitimate CFP hopes this fall, too.
A victory for Kalen DeBoer and Michael Penix would give the Huskies some runway before a November that goes at USC, Utah, at Oregon State and Washington State.
Washington State — Sept. 23 vs. Oregon State
The Cougars avoid both USC and UCLA in 2023, and with a second-half schedule that includes home games against Arizona, Stanford and Colorado — all very winnable games — there’s a path to eight regular-season wins this fall.
But they need to take care of business against the Beavers in late September. Washington State has dominated the series over the last decade (eight straight wins) before Oregon State snapped its long losing streak in 2022.
Beat the Beavers and WSU is looking (at worst) entering October 3-1 with plenty of potential victories on the board.