Column: Late-night games may be hurting Pac-12 teams and Heisman hopefuls

The Pac-12 foray into late-night television continues Saturday with a 7:51 p.m. kickoff time at the Rose Bowl.

The question for Washington State at UCLA, and for the conference in general, has become: Is it too late?

The top of the league has played well in recent weeks, but perhaps too late to make this year’s Final Four.

Stanford this week launched a Heisman Trophy campaign for all-purpose star Christian McCaffrey.

Was it too late for the school with a history second-place finishers (John Elway, Toby Gerhart, Andrew Luck)?

Stanford’s “Spread the News” website for McCaffrey was launched only hours after CBS had already buttered up a prime-time audience.

The network, one of the Southeastern Conference’s on-air publicity arms, used its pulpit to convincingly fashion a two-tailback race in a one-league nation.

It anointed Derrick Henry the clear-cut leader after Alabama’s win over Louisiana State. Transition came with the grace of a relay-team baton handoff as Alabama was holding Leonard Fournette, last week’s clearcut leader, to 31 yards.

McCaffrey’s great day at Colorado, shown on the elusive Pac-12 Network, was squashed like a bug.

Not shockingly, Henry took over first place in most Heisman Trophy straw polls.

Stanford has also won eight straight since its opening loss at Northwestern and might be playing as well as any team.

Once again: too late?

The Cardinal moved up four spots, to No. 7, in this week’s College Football Playoff ranking.

Stanford’s opening defeat, though, has forced it to thread a perfect needle and possibly jump an undefeated Big 12 champion.

UCLA is playing well and moved up to No. 19 in the CFP ranking.

The Bruins control their fate in the South Division but two early losses have likely doomed any playoff chances.

Utah is No. 10 in the playoff ranking and being treated as if it was still a member of the Mountain West Conference.

The Utes have one loss, on the road, against USC. They have two of the best wins this season, the opener against Michigan and a 42-point victory at Oregon.

Yet, the USA Today coaches’ poll still has Utah at No. 13?

People still don’t trust Utah, maybe for good reasons. The Utes have a tough, but streaky, quarterback in senior Travis Wilson. Too bad his three-interception performance against USC couldn’t have been lost in a late-night time slot.

Maybe this is the week Utah proves the naysayers right as it plays at Arizona against a team that has won three straight in the series.

The Pac-12’s playoff road has been made more difficult by coaching-hire upgrades and improvement in the meaty middle.

The only bad team this year is Oregon State. Even Colorado is no longer an easy out.

Washington State is finally playing like the Mike Leach team that used to give Big 12 opponents fits when he was at Texas Tech.

Washington is improving under Chris Petersen, especially on defense.

The most unlikely of all spoilers, Oregon, heads to Stanford on Saturday with a chance to knock the Pac on its back.

Oregon (6-3) isn’t ranked yet, but has averaged 43.7 points in its last three wins.

It is permissible now to wonder how the Ducks might have fared had transfer quarterback Vernon Adams Jr. not broken his finger in early September.

Adams is finally playing like the superstar who terrorized defenses in his four years at Eastern Washington.

“He’s back to doing the things that caught everybody’s eye,” Stanford Coach David Shaw said this week.

Oregon’s defense remains a dam break.

The offense, though, is loaded with more weapons than Heisman winner Marcus Mariota took into last year’s title game against Ohio State.

Stanford’s defense is good, but not great, allowing 338 yards and 20 points a game.

The Cardinal needs one victory to clinch the North for the third time in four years. The only other team to win it was Oregon.

“They’re back to being that team that we all believed them to be,” Shaw said of the Ducks.

An Oregon win may end up being not enough for the Ducks, too bad for Stanford, and “so sorry” for the Pac-12.

chris.dufresne@latimes.com