Keep it Simple is the mantra for gameplanning in the Pac-12

Pac-12 coaches have had to keep game planning simple as schedules shift, sometimes on the fly, during a truncated and uncertain season.

Staffs across the league have had to chuck plans made for opponents that don’t materialize and then crammed for their replacements. They’ve adjusted to not having key players available — sometimes for an extended period — both in practice and for games. That means playbooks are often whittled down.

“You want to pick a couple things your kids are really good at, master those,” USC coach Clay Helton said. “I’ve always thought that if you create confusion, you create hesitation, and hesitation in this game is going to get you beat and get you hurt. So we’ve really taken the opposite approach of really shrinking the bible down and picking a couple of things we can get good at per game and letting our kids play fast.”

Nine Pac-12 games have been canceled this season because of COVID-19. It’s not just the verified cases: contact tracing protocols mean teams have players that are unavailable even though they haven’t tested positive.

As of Wednesday, no new Pac-12 games had been canceled. But Stanford was forced to relocate because of regulations in Santa Clara County, California. The Cardinal will spend nearly the next two weeks on the road, practicing and playing at Washington and at Oregon State.

Once the league secured rapid testing, the original plan was for each team to play a tight schedule of seven conference games in seven straight weeks. But once cancellations occurred and options narrowed, the Pac-12 allowed its teams to look out of conference for opponents.

Which is why Colorado played San Diego State last weekend. The Buffaloes won in Boulder, 20-10.

Again, simplicity was the key.

“Sometimes you’ve got to win ugly and it was one of those games given the lack of preparation,” said new Buffs coach Karl Dorrell.