New-look Pac-12 looking to flex its way into CFP with unique schedule at end of regular season

The reincarnated Pac-12 will try to flex its way into the College Football Playoff.

No longer an automatic-bid Power Five conference, the Pac-12 will use an unusual “flex” schedule during the final week of the regular season to enhance its postseason chances. It is by far one of the most ambitious moves in the chase to make the highly lucrative CFP.

“We can kind of manipulate the schedule in a way that it’s the most advantageous to our teams, whether it’s for bowl access, CFP access,” Pac-12 Commissioner Teresa Gould said. “It was a genius idea and I’m thrilled that our ADs, our coaches and others were on board with moving forward with this.”

The Pac-12 was forced to reinvent itself after a mass exodus put the century-old conference’s future in doubt, leaving Oregon State and Washington State as the only teams standing.

The conference rebuilt itself by adding six new teams for football — Boise State, Colorado State, San Diego State, Utah State, Texas State and Fresno State — with Gonzaga joining in basketball. The Pac-12 also worked out new media rights deals so all of its games would be shown on linear TV.

Finding a path to the CFP turned into a big hurdle for the re-formed conference. The previous iteration of the Pac-12 was as a Power Five conference, providing a clearer path to the CFP. The new-look league is now part of the Group of Six, which has one guaranteed CFP spot going to the highest-ranked team from the six conferences. The rest of the 12-team playoff is filled out by the teams with the best resumes.

The Pac-12 faced operational scheduling challenges with an eight-team league, its schools potentially needing to find five nonconference games — not an easy task in the current Football Bowl Subdivision climate.

The Pac-12 found a solution that would not only alleviate the need to find one extra conference game, but strengthen its CFP hopes.

With its flex schedule, the conference will be able to create at least one high-profile rematch from earlier in the season as a prelude to the actual Pac-12 championship game Dec. 4 at the home stadium of the highest-seeded team.

“We’re eager to see what happens and we’ll see at the end of the season if it paid dividends, if it works it gives us as a conference a better chance of having one of our teams in the CFP playoff,” Oregon State athletic director Kevin Griffin said. “And that’s what the goal is: is to make sure we’re giving ourselves all the opportunities available to get in there.”

Because the conference wants every team to have four home league games, Colorado State, Utah State, Fresno State and Washington State will host the flex games. The games won’t count in conference standings and matchups will be determined six days in advance.

“It’s better for our TV partners in terms of the quality of the matchups, the quality of the games,” Gould said. “It’s better competitively in terms of strength of schedule and CFP positioning and the way that the flex is going to work. We can kind of manipulate the schedule in a way that it’s the most advantageous to our teams.”

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AP Sports Writer Annie Peterson contributed to this report.

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