Pac-12 Football Championship Game

450km
280miles

Oregon State

Texas State

Utah
State

Colorado State

Boise
State

Fresno
State

San Diego State

Washington State

   

Pac-12 Conference football members
– Full members
– Future members

In 2011, the Pacific-10 Conference added Colorado and Utah, bringing the membership total to 12 teams and becoming the Pac-12. Consequently, the conference split into two six-team divisions and created an annual conference championship game.

In the first season of the newly expanded Pac-12 in 2011, USC finished first in the South Division with a 7–2 conference record but was ineligible to play in postseason games due to NCAA sanctions. UCLA (5–4) represented the South Division in the inaugural Pac-12 Football Championship Game as its second-place team.^[6] Oregon represented the North Division and defeated UCLA to become the conference's first football champion to be determined by a championship game.

Through the 2021 season, 9 of the 12 conference members have appeared in the Pac-12 Football Championship Game. All six teams of the South Division have made at least one appearance, while only Oregon, Stanford, Washington have represented the North Division. The North Division representatives won the first six contests and have a 9–2 overall record in the series through the 2021 season.

From 2011 through the 2021 season, the conference used to play the winner of each respective division, the South and the North against one another in the conference title game. Starting in the 2022 season, the Pac-12 elected to have the teams with the two highest conference winning percentage regardless of division play in the conference title game.^[4]

Broadcast rights to the game are held by ESPN and Fox Sports on a 12-year deal that began in 2012, where the rights alternate between ESPN in odd years and Fox in even years. Fox broadcast the inaugural game in 2011.^[7][8]

The game was placed on hiatus in 2024 and 2025, after nearly all of the Pac-12's members left the conference (leaving only Oregon State and Washington State).^[9][10] In 2025, with the conference's re-expansion in the 2026 season, it was announced that the championship game will return and be broadcast by CBS.^[11]

From 2011 through 2021, the conference used division standings based on each team's overall conference record to select conference title game participants. In the event there was a tie two for first place, the championship game berth went to the winner of the season's head-to-head contest between the two teams. If three or more teams were tied, the following tiebreakers were used to determine the division champion:^[12]

• The following procedures will only be used to eliminate all but two teams, at which point the two-team tie-breaking procedure, head-to-head result, will be applied.

1. Head-to-head (best record in games among the tied teams).
2. Record in games played within the division.
3. Record against the next highest placed team in the division (based on record in all Conference games, both divisional and cross-divisional), proceeding through the division.
4. Record in common Conference games.
5. Highest ranking in the SportSource Analytics poll entering the final weekend of the regular season.

Starting in 2022 the two teams with the highest conference winning percentage will face off in the championship game.^[4]

Starting in 2026, the reconstituted Pac-12 will determine the championship game participants at the end of the round-robin conference schedule in Week 12, two weeks before the title game. Week 13 will feature "flex" games within the conference that will not count in the conference standings. The Pac-12 will determine the "flex" pairings, with only the home teams known before Week 12.^[13]

During the era of divisional play, every Pac-12 South program represented the division at least once, but USC or Utah have represented the South in 6 out of 7 seasons beginning in 2015, and only USC and Utah have ever won the Championship Game from the South. Only three schools (Oregon, Stanford, and Washington) represented the North division; each has won the Championship Game multiple times.

During its first three years, the site of the Pac-12 Championship Game was the home stadium of the division champion with the superior overall conference record. In the event that the two division champions were tied, the head-to-head record would be used as the tiebreaker. If the two teams did not meet during the season, a BCS component was to be used.

After three years of the home-hosting model, the Pac-12 announced a three-year deal to host the game at the neutral site of Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California.^[26] In 2017, the Pac-12 announced it would keep the game at Levi's Stadium through 2019 with an option for 2020.^[27]

On July 24, 2019, it was announced that Allegiant Stadium, then under the working name Las Vegas Stadium, would host the Pac-12 Championship Game starting in 2021.^[28]

On October 3, 2020, the Pac-12 announced that the 2020 Pac-12 Championship Game would revert to the original home-hosting model due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with the 2021 game starting the two-year run at Allegiant Stadium.^[29]

On May 18, 2022, the Pac-12 announced that starting with the 2022 edition, the two teams with the highest conference winning percentage will face off in the championship game. No changes were made to the 2022 Pac-12 schedule, which had already been set using the former divisional alignment. The conference also announced it was reviewing several potential scheduling models for future seasons.^[4]

Source:^[30]

• List of NCAA Division I FBS conference championship games
• List of Pac-12 Conference football champions