Don’t forget that Pac-12 bowls aren’t compelled to invite teams based on their final W/L records. They can still invite a team lower in the league standings if said team has no more than one additional loss. This is what happened in 2015 when Utah (9-3, 6-3) fell all the way down to the Las Vegas Bowl (then the league’s 6th selection), despite having earned a share of the South division title, whereas the Pac-12 South’s 3rd-place team UCLA (8-4, 5-4) was allowed to leapfrog both Utah and Wazzu (8-4, 6-3) to go to the Foster Farms — then the league’s 4th selection. And, while Wazzu and Utah had similar 6-3 league records, Wazzu’s 8-4 record was inferior to Utah’s 9-3. But that didn’t stop the Sun Bowl committee from offering them the Sun Bowl vs. Miami instead of us. And while some folks believe ESPN orchestrated this whole thing to ensure a “Utah-ybU” game got played in 2015 after all, that doesn’t explain why we didn’t get the Sun Bowl, as THAT bowl game is owned by CBS. And it’s not like CBS is known for doing ESPN any favors.
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