Pac-12’s best day effectively knocked conference out of playoff contention

It can happen in college football when the greatest day in your conference, in a given season, can also be your worst.

This idea is not incongruent, or mutually exclusive.

Saturday was happy/sad for the Pac-12, a day to celebrate/lament and applaud/forget.

Commissioner Larry Scott could not have been more proud/disappointed.

As the Pac-12 was staging wall-to-wall drama for its fan bases and proving why it may be the nation’s best and deepest league, it was also eliminated from contention for this year’s College Football Playoff.

OK, let’s pull that back a bit — anything is possible in this sport because we’ve been there and seen it.

In 2007, back when only two teams made the playoff, two-loss Louisiana State was No. 7 in the Bowl Championship Series standings on the Saturday morning before the final ranking announcement on Sunday.

LSU Coach Les Miles, before the Southeastern Conference title game, had to shoot down erroneous reports he was about to become the next coach at Michigan.

Times in Baton Rouge were bleak.

Next evening, though, after a hard day’s night, LSU was No. 2 in the BCS on its way to winning the national title.

So, only a fool could say with certainty that a two-loss champion from the Pac-12 could not work its way back to No. 4.

That champion, first, would have to be Stanford, not Utah, which lost its chance when it lost in double overtime to Arizona.

Terrific game, highly entertaining, thanks for the effort, but Utah lost its national traction weeks ago by badly losing, in broad daylight, to USC.

Stanford has a sliver of a prayer of a chance because it still plays No. 4 Notre Dame in Palo Alto on Nov. 28.

A case can be made that a two-loss champion of the Pac-12 could bump out the one-loss champion of the Big 12. It’s not probable, but the odds aren’t infinity.

The SEC could also implode and produce a two-loss champion, but that, too, doesn’t seem likely.

The Big Ten could tailspin if undefeated Iowa loses to Purdue or Nebraska and then loses in the title game to two-loss Michigan.

Who knows?

Rather than craft some longshot, rat-maze path, it’s better to study the reality on the ground. The Pac-12 turned out to be the cut-through conference we thought it would be.

The best and worst fears were realized. The league was too tough for anyone to get through unscathed. Stanford somehow made it to 7-0 (thanks to a missed field-goal attempt at Washington State) before running into a rejuvenated Oregon team on Saturday.

The conference flexed its overall strength Sunday by landing half its members, six, in the top 26 of Sunday’s USA Today coaches’ poll. UCLA has the most points of the remaining schools, which puts the Bruins at No. 26. Five Pac-12 schools also made the Associated Press poll, with UCLA’s points total working out to No. 30.

The problem is the top Pac-12 team in both polls is Stanford at No. 15. The Cardinal was demoted eight positions for a two-point home loss to Oregon in which it failed on a final two-point try to extend the game to overtime.

Hey, it’s a tough world out there. Utah fell five spots to No. 18 for a double-overtime defeat. The other ranked Pac-12 teams are Oregon, Washington State and USC.

What the conference lacks in top-14 firepower it compensates with brutally tough, hand-wringing and compelling play.

Oregon at Stanford was a brilliant, beautifully choreographed contest featuring teams with contrasting mind-sets.

Utah at Arizona was a late-night thriller in which Rich Rodriguez’ team played the role of supreme spoiler. Arizona is not new at this, defeating a top-10 opponent for the fourth straight year.

Washington State’s win over UCLA at the Rose Bowl had to be seen, then replayed two or three times, to be believed. The action ended half-past 11 with quarterback Josh Rosen’s heroic late, end-zone dive being answered by Luke Falk’s equally heroic touchdown pass.

All of this masterpiece theater did nothing but put mud down the Pac-12’s big-picture periscope.

It put three-loss USC and three-loss UCLA in control of the South Division.

It also put the Pac on the outskirts of acclaim.

Once again, national contenders not named USC flinched under pressure.

Stanford quarterback Kevin Hogan, a fifth-year senior, fumbled two, fourth-quarter snaps when two center snaps were never more important.

The Cardinal played two centers during the game, with one botched snapped for each.

Stanford allowed too many huge plays and attempted a field goal (that missed) on fourth and two in a game in which Oregon was scoring touchdowns.

“We fought like crazy,” Coach David Shaw said afterward. “But we didn’t fight very smart.”

Utah had a chance to close Arizona out in regulation until tailback Devontae Booker fumbled. Utah got another chance but failed on third down when a receiver dropped a first-down pass.

Utah allowed the game to extend to extra time, never a good idea, where backup quarterback Jerrard Randall finished the Utes off with a 25-yard touchdown pass — his only completion of the night.

“They’ve had a great season,” Rodriguez said of Utah. “But they still had to beat Arizona, and our guys came to play.”

Utah can’t wallow because the Pac-12 South is still up for grabs and UCLA is coming to Salt Lake City on Saturday.

“We will regroup and come back,” Utah Coach Kyle Whittingham promised.

Whittingham could have been speaking on behalf of the league and all its tough-luck Saturday losers.

There is no doubting the conference, and some of its featured teams, will rebound.

If this was basketball, though, you would say the conference has now, effectively, been boxed out.

chris.dufresne@latimes.com

Twitter: @DufresneLATimes