Oregon's Helfrich on Pac-12 scheduling: 'Worst possible situation' for playoff

Oregon head coach Mark Helfrich is the only Pac-12 coach with experience guiding his team to a birth in the College Football Playoff. He knows how long and arduous the road is. He also seems to believe that the Pac-12's schedule hurts the conference's ability to get a team into the playoff.

When asked by reporters this week about the possibility of the conference being shut out of the playoff, Helfrich appeared to be both proud and dismayed.

"The way that the Pac-12 schedule is set up is ... putting itself in the worst possible situation to have that happen and that's just a fact, it's not good, bad or indifferent, it's a fact," Helfrich said, per The Oregonian. "Until that's addressed we're in that situation."

Helfrich has strongly supported the Pac-12's nine-game regular season conference schedule since becoming head coach in 2013. The Pac-12 is the only Power 5 conference that plays a nine-game conference schedule, though the Big Ten will move to a nine-game schedule next season.

Conference titles and strength of schedule are huge components of the College Football Playoff rankings. However, until there is uniformity in scheduling, as several Pac-12 coaches have pleaded for, the conference's nine-game regular season schedule may be too tough for its own playoff good. 

"We could go down the whole scheduling and non-conference and number of games plus a championship game, all those things," Helfrich said Tuesday. "We're set up to have this happen."

Oregon could destroy the Pac-12's playoff hopes on Saturday by upsetting No. 7 Stanford. However, the Ducks still have a shot at the Pac-12 North crown. Helfrich has no interest in helping out the conference this week.

"I really like the conference," he said, "but we're not throwing the game."