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There are no sports being played but the odds to win the 2020 Pac-12 Championship have been released by FOX Bet.
Oregon took home ultimate crown last season after winning the Pac-12 North at 8-1, defeating Pac-12 South winner Utah, who also went 8-1 in conference play. It should come as no surprise that Oregon opens the season as the odds-on favorite to repeat as champions as they return 1,000s of snaps on a star-studded defense and the best left tackle prospect in years.
What may come as a surprise is how the rest of the conference stacks up.
FOX Bet gives UCLA the seventh-best odds to win the Pac-12 Championship in 2020, ahead of Cal and Stanford who each return qualified starting quarterbacks but below Washington, Utah and Washington State, each who have no starting quarterback with much experience.
Still, UCLA is coming into the 2020 season after a minor improvement from their overall win-loss record, finishing the 2018 season at 3-9 and the 2019 season at 4-8.
Dorian Thompson-Robinson is in a proverbial ‘put up or shut up’ year as the team’s starting quarterback but the Bruins have to replace talent at important positions elsewhere. Joshua Kelley departs after two 1,000-yard seasons and Darnay Holmes is a lock for an early draft pick in April’s NFL draft.
The core pieces are there but this seems to be the year with the most to prove for DTR and head coach Chip Kelly. They finished the 2020 recruiting cycle with 247Sports’ sixth-best recruiting class in the conference and will ultimately have to rely on established talent while breaking in new players at several positions.
Demetric Felton is the team’s wild card as he can line up in the backfield and as a receiver in the slot as a dangerous threat with the ball in his hands.
Only time will tell how the 2020 season unfolds (fingers crossed it even happens) and as reliable as preseason odds are (yawn!), this UCLA team should still be better than the 2019 iteration.
What odds would you give UCLA to win the Pac-12 this season?