[yvonne]

There are three parts of Wilner's post that seem relevant here.

The Sun, Las Vegas and Cactus are required to select teams in order of finish, so a 5-4 team, for example, cannot be passed over in favor of a 4-5 team. My apologies.

We're tied with Utah, and ahead of Washington.

The result ensured that both Arizona and ASU would enter the Territorial Cup with nine wins and top-15 rankings, which increased the likelihood that the winner will earn a berth in one of the six major bowls even if it’s not the South champ.

I won’t say the Cup winner is a lock for the non-playoff New Year’s Eve/Day games, because there are no locks. But the winner would be in advantageous position.

This pushes the lower bowls up a notch. Alamo gets the No 3, Holiday the No. 4, etc.

There’s still a scenario in which the conference has Oregon and then a group of three-loss teams: Stanford beats UCLA and the Territorial Cup winner loses to the Ducks in the title game. Because we have no idea how the selection committee will treat title game losers, there’s no way to know how the Pac-12 would fair on selection day in that scenario.

The first part happened. The second part has a reasonable chance of happening.

Finally, Wilner's post leaves out the Cactus.

[yvonne]

There are three parts of Wilner's post that seem relevant here.

The Sun, Las Vegas and Cactus are required to select teams in order of finish, so a 5-4 team, for example, cannot be passed over in favor of a 4-5 team. My apologies.

We're tied with Utah, and ahead of Washington.

The result ensured that both Arizona and ASU would enter the Territorial Cup with nine wins and top-15 rankings, which increased the likelihood that the winner will earn a berth in one of the six major bowls even if it’s not the South champ.

I won’t say the Cup winner is a lock for the non-playoff New Year’s Eve/Day games, because there are no locks. But the winner would be in advantageous position.

This pushes the lower bowls up a notch. Alamo gets the No 3, Holiday the No. 4, etc.

There’s still a scenario in which the conference has Oregon and then a group of three-loss teams: Stanford beats UCLA and the Territorial Cup winner loses to the Ducks in the title game. Because we have no idea how the selection committee will treat title game losers, there’s no way to know how the Pac-12 would fair on selection day in that scenario.

The first part happened. The second part has a reasonable chance of happening.

Finally, Wilner's post leaves out the Cactus.