Pac-12 Football Championship Game

Arizona

Arizona State

California

UCLA

Colorado

Oregon

Oregon State

USC

Stanford

Utah

Washington

Washington State

– Northern division
– Southern division
– Championship Game site

The Pac-12 Football Championship Game is a college football game held annually by the Pac-12 Conference to determine the season's conference champion. The inaugural game was held on December 2, 2011.^[3]

The game pits the champion of the Pac-12 North Division against the champion of the Pac-12 South Division. Since 2014, the game has been played at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California.^[2] The first three games were held at the home stadium of the division winner with the better conference record: Autzen Stadium in 2011, Stanford Stadium in 2012, and Sun Devil Stadium in 2013.

Television broadcast rights to the game are shared by Fox Sports and ESPN/ABC, with ESPN Radio holding the radio rights.^[4]

History

In 2011, the Pacific-10 Conference added Colorado and Utah, bringing the membership total to 12 teams and becoming the Pac-12. Consequently, the conference split into two six-team divisions and created an annual conference championship game. That year, USC (7-2) finished first but was ineligible to play in postseason games due to NCAA sanctions, resulting in UCLA (5-4) representing the South Division as its second-place team.^[5]

Broadcast rights to the game are held by Fox and ESPN under a 12-year deal, with the rights alternating yearly on a one-year cycle since 2012. Fox also broadcast the inaugural game.^[6][7]

Results

Rankings are from the BCS poll from 2011 to 2013, and the College Football Playoff poll since 2014.

The North Division representative has won every edition of the Pac-12 Championship Game since its inception in 2011.

Results by team

• California, Oregon State, Utah and Washington State have yet to make an appearance in a Pac-12 Championship Game.

Team selection criteria

Division standings are based on each team's overall conference record. In the event that two teams are tied, head-to head competition would break the tie. If three or more teams are tied, the following tiebreakers are used to determine the divisional champion:^[10]

• The following procedures will only be used to eliminate all but two teams, at which point the two-team tie-breaking procedure (head-to-head result) will be applied.

1. Head-to-head (best record in games among the tied teams).
2. Record in games played within the division.
3. Record against the next highest placed team in the division (based on record in all Conference games, both divisional and cross-divisional), proceeding through the division.
4. Record in common Conference games.
5. Highest ranking in SportSource Analytics poll entering the final weekend of the regular season.

Site selection criteria

During its first three years, the site of the Pac-12 Championship Game was the home stadium of the division champion with the best overall conference record. In the event that the two division champions are tied, then the head-to-head record shall be used as the tiebreaker. Previously, when they remain tied after that tiebreaker, then a BCS component would be used. After three years of the home-hosting model, the Pac-12 announced a three-year deal to host the game at a neutral site, Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California.^[11]

See also

• List of Pac-12 Conference football champions
• List of NCAA Division I FBS Conference Championship games

Notes

• November 30, 2012 – Only 31,622 fans attended the 2012 Championship game, which started at 5:20 p.m. on a weeknight. It was also raining that day at the site of the game in Stanford, California.

References