SALT LAKE CITY (AP) Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott is confident his league's champion will have a strong case to get into the College Football Playoff even though the conference doesn't have a clear-cut power at this time.
He also believes schedules in the Power 5 conferences should be more uniform.
The Pac-12 will have just one undefeated team remaining when the game between No. 5 Utah and No. 23 California game ends Saturday night. Traditional powers Oregon, USC and UCLA have all lost to unranked conference opponents.
''Certainly this season there's no champion that will emerge from conference with a tougher pathway than what we've got,'' Scott said Saturday night at the Utah game.
The commissioner explained his rationale this way: the Pac-12 has a nine-game conference schedule, they've had quality nonconference opponents and there's a title game at the end.
Scott said all Power 5 conferences should be mandated to play a nine-game league schedule - something the Big Ten is changing to in 2016.
''There's always going to be differences between conferences in terms of strength of schedule,'' Scott said. ''I think that would be a big step forward for college football if every conference had to play nine conference games, play at least one marquee nonconference game and have a conference championship game. It'd be great if we could mandate that, but that's not the way the governance works right now.''
Scott added that he believes the other conferences will adjust their schedule policies over time because the selection committee is required to consider strength of schedule.
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