Back to normal: Pac-12 returns, still faces long College Football Playoff odds - Yahoo Sports

When the College Football Playoff began in 2014, the bad math that accompanied it was apparent to anyone with an abacus.

There are four spots in the College Football Playoff.

The Pac-12 announced its return to the 2020 college football season on Thursday night, and now it finds itself in a familiar position – needing to play catch-up to the other four power conference leagues.

The Pac-12 will start the season later than everyone (Nov.  6).

And it’ll play just seven total games, which means it’ll need some serious 2020 magic to vault over the other conferences.

The Pac-12 hasn’t won a national title in 15 seasons, hasn’t appeared in the past five College Football Playoff title games and has been excluded from the playoff entirely the past three seasons.

5 league in the Power Five in the College Football Playoff era.

And the joy that accompanies the league’s return in 2020 should also be tinged with this reality: No power conference faces bigger obstacles in earning a playoff bid.

The Pac-12 will be judged off a six-game regular season and a title game.

Commissioner Larry Scott said on Thursday night there will be no minimum number of games for CFP contenders this season, the only logical conclusion by the committee considering that chaos is the standard operating procedure for college football in 2020.

Whoever wins the Pac-12 has to do so convincingly enough that they show more in seven games than the SEC champion will in 11, the Big Ten champion will in nine games, the ACC champion in 12 and the Big 12 champion in 11 games.

The Pac-12 started the Associated Press preseason rankings with no teams in the top five, only No.