USC to play Oregon, not Washington, in Pac-12 title game

A tentative Pac-12 title game matchup between USC and Washington lasted all of 36 hours before being upended.

USC will now face Oregon, an alternate, to decide the Pac-12 title game on Friday night at the Coliseum. The decision was announced by the conference on Monday morning, after an outbreak of coronavirus last week at Washington left the Huskies without the necessary number of scholarship players to play.

Washington and Oregon were supposed to meet last Saturday to decide who would win the Pac-12’s North division and face USC, the South champion. But that game was canceled due to COVID-19 issues, leaving Washington as the de facto division winner.

According to the Pac-12, the decision to replace Washington with Oregon, which lost its last two games, was made “under Pac-12 Football Championship Game policy,” which dictates that the team with the next best record in the division would play for the championship.