College Football Week 12: Bold predictions and upset alerts

Bo Nix outduels Cameron Rising

Oregon blew its chance at the College Football Playoff last week with a bad home loss to Washington. However, the Ducks don’t have time to feel sorry for themselves because if they don’t beat Utah on Saturday, their Pac-12 title hopes are probably over.

USC, Utah, and Oregon all have one loss each. UCLA has two and Washington has two. But if the Bruins beat USC, there could be a four-way tie with UCLA, Utah, USC, and Washington and the Bruins have head-to-head wins over the other three.

So a UCLA win this weekend and an Oregon win puts them in the driver’s seat. Cameron Rising and Utah are the reigning Pac-12 champions. If this game was in Utah, I’d feel the opposite in this game, but Nix adds a nice running element and is equal to or better than Rising.

The Utah running game was the difference a year ago and the Utes just flat-out dominated the Ducks in the trenches. That won’t happen this time around and Nix will get the Ducks on a path to a Pac-12 title rematch with Chip Kelly.