'Cannibalism' puts Pac-12 in unenviable playoff position

FOXSports.com's Stewart Mandel caught up with Arizona coach Rich Rodriguez after last week's upset of Oregon for this week's Forward Pass column, and Rodriguez commented on the cannibalistic tendencies of the Pac-12. (In case you overlooked it, RichRod's Wildcats are the only unbeaten team remaining in the conference.

"I said before the season, we're going to eat each other up, we're going to cannibalize each other," said Rodriguez. "There's going to be more games like those (Saturday) because of the play of the quarterbacks."

Rodriguez told Mandel he enjoyed being able to sit back and watch Saturday's chaos, since his team had played on Thursday night:  "That was so nice," he joked, "playing Thursday and winning and then watching everyone else suffer on Saturday."

Mandel points out that the Pac-12's parity puts the conference in an unenviable position for qualifying for one of four spots in this year's inaugural playoff.

Mandel's column offers up his typically insightful take on which of last week's Top 5 upset victims have the least to worry about, and a look at how  TCU realized it needed to upgrade its offensive personality to compete with the nation's elite team. Click here to read this week's Forward Pass.