The Pac-12 Conference released its 2012 college football schedule on Wednesday, the second year of play since the conference expanded to 12 teams in 2011. The featured game appears to be the Rose Bowl winners and defending conference champion Oregon Ducks traveling to Los Angeles on November 3 to play the USC Trojans at the Coliseum in a battle of division favorites in the Pac-12 North and Pac-12 South, respectively.
It is very possible that both USC, with Matt Barkley returning for his senior season, and Oregon will be ranked in the preseason top five. The Pac-12 Championship Game will be played on Friday, November 30 at the site of the division winner with the best record.
Every game on the Pac-12 schedule will be on national television as part of the conference's new broadcast deal. Games will either be on ESPN, Fox, of the new Pac-12 Network, which launches in August.
“The one thing we heard loud and clear from fans across the Conference is they want to see their teams play every week,” Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott said in a statement. “Starting in 2012 fans can see all games throughout the country."
Pac-12 teams will play the same opponents in 2012 as they did in 2011, just at the opposite venue, as part of the eight-year scheduling rotation adopted by the conference last year. Each team plays the other five teams in their own division every year, and rotates the other four games among the six teams in the other division. To further complicate matters, the USC Trojans and UCLA Bruins play the Stanford Cardinal and Cal Bears every year, so their rotation really only consists of switching every two years between the Oregon and Washington schools.
USC travels to Washington on October 13. UCLA travels to Washington State on November 10 and hosts Oregon State on September 27.
For more college football news and analysis, be sure to read Conquest Chronicles and Bruins Nation.