Although the sports world is on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic, it doesn't mean we can't look ahead to a time when there is college football again.
Caesars Sportsbook just released season win totals and conference title odds for every FBS team, and our experts -- Bill Connelly, David Hale, Doug Kezirian and Phil Steele -- are here to give their best bets for teams from the Pac-12 Conference.
Odds courtesy of Caesars Sportsbook.
Pac-12 championship best bets
USC Trojans (+250)
Steele: The odds are not great at just +250, but my power ratings have USC as the best team in the Pac-12 this season, so it's worth a look. The Trojans have two QBs who are capable of being the best in the Pac-12 in Kedon Slovis and JT Daniels and return a big chunk of last year's team, including 17 starters. USC faces Notre Dame and Alabama in its nonconference schedule, but that has no impact on winning the Pac-12. The Trojans are the league's most complete team.
Arizona State Sun Devils (12-1)
Hale: Oregon seems like the safe play here, but at 2-1, there's not a lot of return on the investment. Still, among the other top contenders -- USC (+250), Utah (5-1) and Washington (4-1) -- there are not significant payouts there either. The team that offers the most intriguing potential is probably Arizona State (12-1), which returns an emerging star in QB Jayden Daniels (only two INTs on 338 attempts last year) and had four of its five losses come by 10 points or less.
Washington State Cougars (30-1)
Steele: Nick Rolovich did a great job getting a depleted Hawai'i team to a bowl in 2018 and a mediocre team to the Mountain West title game last year. He inherits a group of players recruited for his pass-happy run-and-shoot offense.
Two years ago, Washington State had only four Pac-12 road games (three were against teams with a losing record), and they parlayed that schedule into an 11-2 season. This year the Cougars again have just four conference road games, and all four are against teams that had a losing season last year. While Mike Leach could never beat Chris Petersen in the Apple Cup, that matchup now favors Rolovich versus a first-time head coach in Jimmy Lake.
Stanford Cardinal (40-1)
Connelly: Unlikely long shot? Absolutely. But Stanford was crazy-young during last year's collapse and returns a lot of former blue-chippers who could figure things out and overachieve. But even at 48th in the preseason SP+, the Cardinal are given an average of 6.1 projected total wins and 4.4 conference wins. They've got a 65% chance of hitting 6-plus wins, and they would only need a couple of surprise results to contend. The 40-1 conference title odds are the equivalent of a 2.4% chance; I'd put it a bit higher than that (but not too much higher). I do like Stanford over 5.5 wins.
Season win totals
Oregon State Beavers under 5.5 wins (-135)
Hale: The Beavers were vastly improved last season, to be sure, but they also got really lucky. No team in the country capitalized on opportunities quite like Oregon State, which ranked first in the country in red-zone TD rate (88.2% -- 10 percentage points higher than the next best team) and scored a TD on every goal-to-go drive. The Beavers also went from minus-9 to plus-9 in turnover margin and added 100 points in points-off-turnover differential from 2018. And all of that still only added up to five wins, so topping that number with even a little less luck in 2020 is going to be tough.
Connelly: Oregon State was nearly an awesome story last year, coming within a game of a bowl bid but dropping heartbreakers to Hawaii, Stanford and Washington State and finishing 5-7. The Beavers were driven by their offense, and that's unfortunate because their starting QB, leading rusher and receiver, as well as a majority of the offensive line are all gone. Plus, the Beavers take road trips to Oklahoma State, Arizona State, Washington, Stanford and Utah and host Oregon. They might have to win every other game on the schedule to get to six wins, and neither I nor SP+ think that will happen. The numbers give OSU only about a 25% chance of hitting 6-plus wins.
Washington State over 6 (-130)
Connelly: Nick Rolovich has a passing game to rebuild (his top three QBs and WRs are gone), but he has a good track record there, and the Cougs will be experienced pretty much everywhere else. Wazzu is likely a top-50 team (47th per SP+ projections) and will probably be favored in six to eight games. SP+ gives them a 55% chance of ending up with at least seven wins and only a 23% chance of going under. The odds of at least pushing with this one are good.
California Golden Bears over 7 (-110)
Kezirian: Cal should compete for the Pac-12 title and only needs to win seven games to avoid losing this ticket? Sign me up. First, I am a huge fan of head coach Justin Wilcox, who assembled one of the nation's top defenses last year. He does lose stud linebacker Evan Weaver, but Wilcox is a wizard and will reload a stout unit. On the offensive side of the ball, quarterback Chase Garbers returns. The Bears started 4-0 last year but lost Garbers early in the loss to Arizona State, and that derailed their season. This is a good football team, and I would also grab a piece of 12-1 to win the conference.
The schedule is tough and lacks several automatic wins. I'm hopeful the Bears handle their business on trips to UNLV and Oregon State and then at home to Cal Poly, Stanford and UCLA. I also think Cal will have plenty of other opportunities to get over this total.
Washington Huskies under 8.5 (Even)
Steele: I feel like Lake is a good hire for the Huskies, and he will have one of the top defenses in the league with eight starters back after having only two return last year. The offense is a question mark, however. The Huskies lost three solid offensive linemen, their NFL-caliber QB, a 1,000-yard RB, their top WR and TE, not to mention head coach Chris Peterson. Washington draws Michigan in the nonconference slate and has five Pac-12 road games versus bowl teams from last year.
Stanford over 5.5 (-110)
Steele: Stanford had a fantastic streak of 20 straight bowl games snapped last year. The Cardinal went through myriad injuries and ended up starting three true freshmen on the offensive line for most of the year and three different QBs with the starter rarely at full health. While a bunch of players hit the portal at the end of the year, Stanford still has a veteran unit with 17 returning starters. David Shaw has an 86-34 record in his nine years at Stanford with five double-digit-win seasons and just one losing year. I have a good feeling the Cardinal are back in a bowl in 2020.