At around 2 a.m. Eastern Standard Time on Saturday night, as Heisman Trophy voters and College Football Playoff selectors enter their second or third hour of REM sleep, the Oregon Ducks will remember yet another reason they are so happy to be leaving the utter absurdity of the Pac-12 for the greener pastures of the Big Ten, which actually knows how to treat its best teams and players well.

The Ducks host the suddenly unranked — and surprisingly Alex Grinch-less — USC Trojans for a 7:30 PST kickoff, meaning most eyes east of the Mississippi will be long closed for 1 of 2 Pac-12 games of the week.

The Ohio State Buckeyes? The Michigan Wolverines? They don’t have a single late window game this year. Their latest kickoffs are at 7:30 EST. Not 10:30.

Oregon? Relegated to the night game for #Pac12AfterDark, where everything weird can happen and often does, just as they will likely be putting the final touches on what should be their 9th win of the season in front of West coasters and maybe the morbidly curious.

And what’s at stake for the Ducks — oh, and the No. 5 Washington Huskies, who play Utah at 12:30 p.m.? Nothing short of immortality.

No big deal. Who needs sleep, anyway?

*****

You’d think that, this late in an exceedingly competitive college football season, you might get a bit of a reprieve. But no, Week 11 is shaping up to be a make-or-break weekend for several CFP contenders, including Oregon and Washington.

In addition to the pair of Pac-12 slugfests, No. 2 Michigan travels to No. 9 Penn State and No. 1 Georgia hosts No. 10 Ole Miss.

If anything, the Ducks and Huskies should consider themselves lucky.

Oregon hosts an emotionally fragile USC team (or an emotionally stunted, depending on your perspective), fresh off the firing of defensive coordinator Alex Grinch. His presence had been haunting over the Trojans like a specter, week after week of horrendous play begetting penetrating questions. When defensive players have to answer about the status of their coordinator, that’s not a good sign.

Sure, USC has a dangerous offense and the reigning Heisman Trophy winner who is still playing at a Heisman level, but what has that done for them? Three losses in 4 weeks to knock them out of CFP contention.

The Ducks, meanwhile, will look at this as another opportunity for style points, as they have since their fateful 3-point loss at Washington in Week 7. In their past 3 games, Oregon’s margin of victory is 126-49. Washington’s? Just 109-82.

“I’d say elite,” Bo Nix said of the team’s response to the Washington loss. “I’d say we’ve done really good. Obviously a tough day, but I think we’ve done the best we can out of that situation. We’ve put together a bunch of really good wins. We’ve been dynamic in our whole team. The defense, offense and special teams have responded and played really well since that point.”

Washington, meanwhile, appeared to wake up last Saturday with an impressive 52-42 win at USC, after 2 weeks of sleepwalking through wins over Arizona State and Stanford.

They’ll need to prepare themselves to transition from the finesse Trojans to the brutally tough Utah Utes.

“They’re very physical, and we all know watching their film over the years that being physical and being tough is what they pride themselves on,” Washington coach Kalen DeBoer said. “That’s how they feel they’re gonna go attack the game and that’s been a big part of their success and back-to-back conference championships. Huge hats off to them and the belief in their identity.”

*****

If only it were just this weekend.

For the Ducks and Huskies, one opponent looms large.

The 12th-ranked Oregon State Beavers.

The Huskies travel to Corvallis next week. The Beavers make the short drive to Autzen Stadium the following week. The 2-loss Beavers could play ultimate spoilers the final 2 weeks of the year. Win both, and Oregon State plays itself into the conference title game while dealing death blows to both Washington and Oregon’s Playoff hopes.

How fitting would that be for 1 of 2 Pac-2 castaways in the conference’s final season.

Poetic justice, really.

But that’s a story for another day.

Both the Huskies and Ducks have other things to worry about, starting this week.