2015 Pac-12 Football Championship Game

2015 Pac-12 Football Championship Game
Conference Championship
USC Trojans Stanford Cardinal (8–4) (10–2) 22 41 Head coach:  Clay Helton Head coach:  David Shaw AP Coaches CFP 24 24 20 AP Coaches CFP 7 7 7
1 2 3 4 Total USC 0 3 13 6 22 Stanford 3 10 14 14 41
Date	December 5, 2015
Season	2015
Stadium	Levi's Stadium
Location	Santa Clara, CA
MVP	Christian McCaffrey, RB, Stanford
National anthem	Brian McKnight
Halftime show	John Ondrasik
Attendance	58,476
United States TV coverage
Network	ESPN, ESPN Deportes
Announcers	ESPN: Brad Nessler, Todd Blackledge and Holly Rowe; ESPN Radio: Adam Amin, David Norrie and Olivia Harlan

2015 Pac-12 football standings
	Conf							Overall
Team		W		L					W		L
North Division
#3 Stanford x$		8	–	1					12	–	2
#19 Oregon		7	–	2					9	–	4
Washington State		6	–	3					9	–	4
California		4	–	5					8	–	5
Washington		4	–	5					7	–	6
Oregon State		0	–	9					2	–	10
South Division
USC xy		6	–	3					8	–	6
#17 Utah x		6	–	3					10	–	3
UCLA		5	–	4					8	–	5
Arizona State		4	–	5					6	–	7
Arizona		3	–	6					7	–	6
Colorado		1	–	8					4	–	9
Championship: Stanford 41, USC 22
$ – Conference champion x – Division champion/co-champions y – Championship game participant As of January 12, 2016; Rankings from AP Poll

The 2015 Pac-12 Football Championship Game was played on Saturday, December 5, 2015 at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California. It was the fifth championship game in the history of the Pac-12 Conference. The game featured the South Division champion USC Trojans against the North Division champion Stanford Cardinal. with Stanford defeating USC 41–22.

History

The game was the fifth football conference championship for the Pac-12 Conference (or any of its predecessors). Last season, the Oregon Ducks defeated the Arizona Wildcats 51–13 for the conference championship and represented the conference in the 2015 Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California. The Ducks then advanced to play in the first CFP National Championship on January 12, 2015 against the Ohio State Buckeyes for the national championship.

Teams

The Stanford Cardinal battled the USC Trojans for the second time this season, having defeated them 41–31 earlier this season at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

Stanford

Stanford returned to the Pac-12 Championship for the third time since its inception. Stanford is led by fifth-year head coach, David Shaw, QB Kevin Hogan, and RB Christian McCaffrey. McCaffrey is averaging 255.18 all purposes yards per game.

USC

USC competed in the championship game for the first time since the conference expanded to 12 teams. USC and Utah are tied for first place in the South Division, with the tiebreaker going to USC, who won the game against the Utes earlier this season. Leading the team are senior QB Cody Kessler, freshman TB Ronald Jones II, sophomore WR JuJu Smith-Schuster, sophomore CB-WR-RET Adoree’ Jackson.

Game summary

Statistics

Statistics
First downs
Plays–yards
Rushes–yards
Passing yards
Passing: Comp–Att–Int
Time of possession

See also

• List of Pac-12 Conference football champions

Notes

• John Ondrasik of Five for Fighting performed during the game.

References