Stanford opens as four-point favorite to win Pac-12 Championship Game

In that sense, the stakes for USC may be even higher than those of the Cardinal, who have an outside chance of sneaking into the College Football Playoff with a win. Stidham was injured last week against Oklahoma State.

Colorado at Utah (23), Utah by 16.5: Once again, Colorado doesn’t win a close game. A win could re-establish Helton as a legitimate candidate to be the Trojans’ full-fledged head coach. USC is trying to earn its first trip to the Pac-12 title game.

Mora has a 37-14 record at UCLA, and the Bruins have climbed the bowl-game ladder the past three seasons – from Holiday to Sun to Alamo. “I’m proud of our seniors, they deserve to go out as champions after what they have been through”, said interim coach Clay Helton. UCLA needed its receivers to get separation, Rosen to be more accurate or offensive coordinator Noel Mazzone to make it easier on them. “I think about the seniors and the roller-coaster ride they have gone through”, USC interim head coach Chris Helton said.

Stanford really seems like a ho, hum, I guess they are the best team this year, but I don’t see either of the horribly flawed LA schools beating them in the championship game. “If you try to worry about anything outside of that then you’re not doing due diligence to the game. It came to me and it just worked out perfectly”.

They also know they haven’t won anything yet. “Whatever happens in the end happens and I’ll be able to live with that”.

Mora was asked how hard it is to face the Trojans without Sarkisian, a longtime friend, on the opposite sideline.

“It’s a new feeling for us here”, Mora said.

“There’s a lot of plays that I wish I had back”, Rosen said.

Sarkisian was sacked in October after a series of embarrassing events that multiple outlets have reported were related to alcohol abuse.

The article above was released by the University of California at Los Angeles. However before we get into the much-anticipated details of the conference championship, lets view a few takeaways from the USC-UCLA game.

Next Saturday’s Pac-12 Championship game against the No.13-ranked Cardinal is scheduled to kick off at either 4:45 p.m. or 5:00 p.m. It will be USC’s chance at redemption after Stanford handed USC its first loss of the season, 41-31, at the Coliseum in September. Although they have a very good running back in Paul Perkins, Rosen hopes to duplicate the performance by Oregon’s Vernon Adams Jr. last week against the Trojans. The belief that Shaw has instilled in his team was on full display against Notre Dame and will carry through right into the championship game.

Arizona State and Arizona will be looking to fill in at a bowl game were conferences don’t have enough bowl-eligible teams, and there will be plenty. Cal is bowl eligible for the first time since 2011.

INSIDE THE NUMBERS: Visiting teams are 25-24 in Pac-12 games heading into Friday’s matchups….

– Stanford sophomore running back Christian McCaffrey continues to lead the FBS with 255.18 all-purpose yards per game, by almost 50 yards over the next player (Tyler Ervin, San Jose State, 206.73 ypg).

While Adams made his name at Eastern Washington with a frenetic and often wild approach to playing quarterback, Rosen is the prototypical pocket passer and more than capable of turning those same USC mistakes into touchdowns. If not for those self-imposed errors, UCLA could have been 10-1 entering the USC game, as opposed to 8-3.