Washington is Pac-12’s lone title contender

Let’s boil 14 weeks and 12 teams into three words: Huskies or bust.

After carnage on multiple fronts in Week Eight, the Pac-12 appears to have one shot left at the College Football Playoff:

That shot wears purple and plays defense but is losing players by the week and feels a tad wobbly.

Nonetheless, Washington as a 12-1 conference champion is the Pac-12’s best hope to sneak into the semifinals.

Any other scenario requires such an unrealistic set of scenarios that it can be dismissed at this point, on the brink of November, with the first selection committee rankings due in eight days:

• Even if USC wins out, the 11-2 Trojans won’t make it with an embarrassing defeat to a fellow contender (Notre Dame).

• Even if Washington State wins out, the 12-1 Cougars won’t make it with a weak nonconference schedule and a 37-3 no-show against a secondtier opponent (Cal).

• Even if Stanford wins out, the 11-2 Cardinal won’t make it with one of the defeats coming against a multi-loss team from the Mountain West.

San Diego State’s home loss to Jeff Tedford and Fresno State (by 24 points) did as much damage to the Pac-12’s reputation as USC’s roll-over in South Bend.

(OK, maybe not that much damage.)

With Stanford and Arizona State moving into contending positions in the North and South, the Pac-12 has moved closer to an end game in which both division winners would have lost to San Diego State.

If that scenario plays out, it won’t be splattered across ESPN. It will be wall-to-wall on C-SPAN.

A two-loss Power Five champion will make the playoffs at some point, perhaps even this year. But it will have two high-level losses and a long string of quality wins.

So it’s the Huskies or bust. Right now, I’m leaning bust …