Stanford provided plenty of highlights to end its season. With a last second field goal to beat then-No. 6 Notre Dame and a Heisman-like performance from Christian McCaffrey in the Cardinal’s 41-22 win over USC in the Pac-12 Championship the following week, David Shaw’s bunch captured its third conference title in four years. But they’re not reaping the benefits.

The Cardinal were the lone conference champion from a Power Five conference left out of the College Football Playoff this season — a result which seemed like a foregone conclusion after its first Pac-12 loss to Oregon on Nov. 14.

Instead, the Cardinal will face Big Ten runner-up Iowa in the Rose Bowl. A prestigious bowl, but likely not what Shaw and the rest of the Pac-12 envisioned back at the start of the year considering the win over Notre Dame and a Pac-12 title.

But how the year started seems to be Stanford and the Pac-12’s underlying problem. While Oregon used a premiere top 10 matchup win against Michigan State to launch into the national championship conversation last year, Stanford stumbled its way to a 16-6 loss at Northwestern in the opening game of the 2015 season.

After the unexpected slip-up, the Cardinal salvaged their playoff chances and reeled off eight consecutive wins. But its lone Pac-12 loss proved consequential and reason for an argument to be raised about altering the conference schedule.

The Pac-12 is the only league to play a nine-game conference slate and a conference championship. The Big Ten plays a championship and will begin a nine-game conference schedule in 2016, while the ACC and SEC use an eight-game conference schedule with a championship. The Big 12 uses a nine-game schedule without a championship.

Oregon head coach Mark Helfrich and offensive coordinator Scott Frost (who recently became head coach at UCF) stated a potential need for the Pac-12 to move to an eight-game conference slate after the Ducks’ win virtually knocked Stanford out of playoff contention, according to Sports Illustrated. 

But while that argument may be firm, it’s not why Stanford isn’t in the playoff this year. The Cardinal aren’t in this year because of their non-conference schedule.

Compared to the four teams in the College Football Playoff this year, Stanford and Clemson are the only teams to schedule both a Power Five conference opponent as well as a consistent title contender in Notre Dame, who is Independent, in non-conference play.

The other participants’ non-conference slates were constructed like this:

– Alabama opened its season versus Wisconsin, but faced Middle Tennessee State, UL Monroe and Charlestown Southern.

– Michigan State faced Oregon, but played the rest of its non-conference games against Western Michigan, Air Force and Central Michigan.

– Oklahoma went into a hostile environment at Tennessee early in the season, but used its other non-conference dates to play Tulsa and Akron.

Clemson faced Notre Dame as well as in-state rival and SEC member South Carolina, who finished 3-9 this season. On the contrary, two of Stanford’s non-conference opponents finished the regular season ranked No. 13 (Northwestern) and No. 8 (Notre Dame) by the College Football Playoff Committee.

Rather than having a schedule that included one team from another Power Five conference and either FCS or Group of Five opponents rounding out its non-conference slate, the Cardinal set itself up for a much more strenuous campaign than the majority of the playoff participants.

And, in the process, Stanford proved how multiple equally matched non-conference games have the potential to do more harm than good.

So, while the argument is valid that the Pac-12 should consider changing the conference schedule from nine to eight games, it still may not have prevented the Cardinal’s eventual fate. As you can see when compared to the rest of the playoff’s contenders, scheduling two measurable non-conference opponents proved to be the difference for Stanford this year, because the majority only scheduled one.

Follow Justin Wise on Twitter @JustinFWise