Pac-12 Football Season In Review

• Pac-12 Champion Washington provided the Pac-12 with a CFP semifinalist for the second time in three years, joining Oregon which reached the 2015 CFP championship game. The Huskies captured the Pac-12 championship after posting a 41-10 victory over South Division champion COLORADO. Washington posted its second-ever 12-win season, while Colorado posted its first 10-win season since 2001 and just the eighth such season in school history. 

• The Pac-12 placed a pair of teams, No. 3 USC and No. 4 WASHINGTON, in the top four of the final Associated Press Top 25. It’s the third time two Pac-12 members appeared in the top four of the final AP Top 25. This also occurred in 2010 (No. 3 Oregon, No. 4 Stanford) and 2000 (No. 3 Washington, No. 4 OREGON STATE) ... For the third time in four years, the Pac-12 placed five or more teams in the final AP poll.

• Pac-12 teams finished the bowl season with a 3-3 mark, which included USC’s dramatic 52-49 victory over Penn State. USC has won its last seven Rose Bowl games vs. Big Ten opponents, while the Pac-12 has won eight of the last 10 Rose Bowl Games in which it was pitted against the Big Ten ... UTAH edged Indiana in the Foster Farms Bowl, 26-24, behind the leg of place kicker Andy Phillips who connected on four field goals ... STANFORD got a big defensive stop on North Carolina’s attempt at a two-point conversion with 0:25 remaining in the game and pulled out a 25-23 victory in the Hyundai Sun Bowl.

PILING UP THE POINTS: Eighteen times a Pac-12 team has topped 50 points in a game this season ... WASHINGTON STATE has scored 50 or more points in a game a record four times this season. It’s 125 combined points in back-to-back games (69 vs. Arizona, 56 vs. California) are the most ever for the Cougars over two games ... WASHINGTON led the Pac-12 with 41.8 points per game, just 0.1 shy of its single-season school record of 41.9 ppg set in 1991. It has scored 40 points or more in 10 games ... USC scored 40 or more points in a game seven times, while CALIFORNIA and COLORADO each scored 40 or more points in a game six times.

35 TD PASSES: Washington’s Jake Browning (43), Washington State’s Luke Falk (38) and California’s Davis Webb (37) have each thrown 35 or more TD passes this season. Nine times over the last three seasons a Pac-12 quarterback has thrown 35 or more TD passes in a season. Prior to the 2014 season, a Pac-12 quarterback tossed 35 or more TD passes just four times in the history of the Conference. Browning’s 43 TD passes matched the Pac-12 single-season record of 43 set in 2015 by California’s Jared Goff.

ALL-PURPOSE X TWO: Since the Conference began keeping all-purpose yardage since 1978, five Pac-12 players have averaged better than 200 all-purpose yards per game for a season, but STANFORD’s Christian McCaffrey is the only player to do it twice. He set the Pac-12 single-season mark last season with 276.0 yards per game when he set the FBS record with 3,864 all-purpose yards, then led the nation again in 2016 with 211.5 yards per game. 

GET YOUR KICKS: The Pac-12 swept the national honors in the kicking game in back-to-back seasons. ARIZONA STATE PK Zane Gonzalez earned the Lou Groza Award (UCLA’s Ka’imi Fairbairn won in 2015) as the nation’s top place kicker after a stellar season in which he hit 23-of-25 (.920), including 7-of-9 from 50 yards or beyond. He concluded his career as the FBS career recordholder for career field goals (96) ... UTAH punter Mitch Wishnowsky grabbed the Ray Guy Award (Utah’s Tom Hackett won in 2014 and 2015) as the nation’s top punter. Wishnowsky averaged 47.7 yards per boot, placing 34 of his 60 punts inside the 20-yard line.

IT’S UNANIMOUS: For just the fourth time in Conference history, four student-athletes earned unanimous All-America honors. Here’s the esteemed group:

2016 - Cody O’Connell, OG, WSU; Adoree’ Jackson, CB, USC; Zane Gonzalez, PK, ASU; Mitch Wishnowsky, Utah
1995 - Tedy Bruschi, DE, ARIZ; Jonathan Ogden, OT, UCLA; Keyshawn Johnson, WR, USC; Lawyer Milloy, FS, WASH
1982 - Vernon Maxwell, LB, ASU; John Elway, QB, STAN; Don Mosebar, OT, USC; Chuck Nelson, PK, WASH
1978 - Al Harris, DL, ASU; Jerry Robinson, LB, UCLA; Pat Howell, G, USC; Charles White, RB, USC

PAC-12 FOOTBALL SPRING SCHEDULE