The Implosion of the PAC-12

[greenbaggins]

I am sad to see the PAC-12 implode like they have done. Honestly, though, the directors of the PAC-12 should have taken a hint from what the BIG-12 did when Oklahoma and Texas announced they were jumping ship and joining the SEC. The BIG-12 immediately courted and got UCF, Cincy, Houston, and BYU. Once USC and UCLA decided to bolt for the BIG-10, the PAC-12 should immediately have courted Boise State, Fresno State, Northern Illinois, maybe Nevada and UNLV. Instead, they allowed the members to bolt. The BIG-10 got the most out of it: Washington, Oregon, USC, and UCLA.

 

[Pilgrim]

One of the worst aspects of this is what it does to the other sports that aren't money makers. Now volleyball teams or whatever are going to have to go from one coast to the other in some conferences. Those kinds of trips are somewhat less rare for football. Unlike major college football and one and done basketball players, many of the athletes in the other sports are actually there to get a degree.

I wonder if the PAC-12 didn't think that the prospect of implosion was a serious enough issue given the distance between the West Coast and the Midwest and points further east.

 

[Pilgrim]

To me, the PAC-12 without several of the schools that left isn't the PAC-12. It would be like if Michigan, Ohio State, Michigan State and Indiana left the BIG-10 or Alabama, LSU, Florida and Georgia left the SEC.

 

[greenbaggins]

Chris, after 2024, there will only be two schools left: Washington State and Oregon State.

 

[Beoga]

As a second generation Oregon State grad this has been a very discouraging summer. Couldn't have happened at a worse time with an upgraded stadium and a team primed to make some noise this year. The school is already at a disadvantage and this further harms them. Oh well, "football is [not] life."

 

[Pilgrim]

Chris, after 2024, there will only be two schools left: Washington State and Oregon State.

Yes. It looks like once a few of the original schools jumped ship, it precipitated the defection of the others, who likely didn't want to be in sort of a glorified WAC by a different name. I haven't kept up with the news lately, but it probably should just go the way of the SWC at this point. I know the WAC was basically reconstituted with mostly different schools several years ago, but it didn't have the prestige of the Pac-12.

 

[Contra_Mundum]

My interest in sports has dwindled to almost nothing (from a once moderate-fan standpoint). But as this issue seems to me not so much sports as economics, I will offer my

The drive to create a playoff and on-field "national champion" is partner to the demise of the PAC-12, and (I tend to think) soon several more "premiere" football conferences. Basketball is a different sport, with a widely spread talent pool; and the NCAA can conduct a major (and several minor) tournaments on the way to a national champion trophy.

As a used-to-be follower of college football, I said as much as 10yrs ago that with the elevation of such a national championship for football would come the abandonment of interest in various conference trophies. And so it has begun to happen, as I see it. History doesn't matter. Heritage, rivalries, it's all being subordinated to chasing the money ever more.

Th-th-th-th-th-that's all folks!

 

[hammondjones]

I'm not a huge college football fan, but I am a fan of Americana, tradition, and sis-boom-bah, and the West Coast football scene was unique, and it's more than a bit sad that regional cultural distinctives are lost. What is the Rose Bowl without the Pac 10? Just another game, I guess.

Amateur athletes making millions for other people is an untenable arrangement.


Also feel sorry for all the non-revenue sport athletes that now get to travel cross country for almost every conference away game.

 

[DanSSwing]

I just hope this eventually leads to four serious conferences and those conference champions immediately go to a four-team playoff.

 

[Sovereign Grace]

Cal and Stanford will be in the ATLANTIC Coast Conference. Let that biscuit sop up yer gravy.

 

[earl40]

The drive to create a playoff and on-field "national champion" is partner to the demise of the PAC-12, and (I tend to think) soon several more "premiere" football conferences.

The drive to win it all always drove me nuts. The game of football is a great way to learn how to strive to be better, especially through teamwork, The idea one must be champion to have a successful season is sad. Don't get me wrong I loved it when my team (UCF) won it all in 2017 . If we win more than half our games this year it will be a great year.

 

[DanSSwing]

The drive to win it all always drove me nuts. The game of football is a great way to learn how to strive to be better, especially through teamwork, The idea one must be champion to have a successful season is sad. Don't get me wrong I loved it when my team (UCF) won it all in 2017 . If we win more than half our games this year it will be a great year.

I liked college football better back when the conference championship was the real goal, followed by a bowl victory, and a national championship was more of a "nice to have" than a "must win."

 

[Pilgrim]

As a second generation Oregon State grad this has been a very discouraging summer. Couldn't have happened at a worse time with an upgraded stadium and a team primed to make some noise this year. The school is already at a disadvantage and this further harms them. Oh well, "football is [not] life."

Given your family's history with the school, I'm sure you are aware that Oregon State hasn't played in the Rose Bowl since 1965. I was thinking "How great would it be if they won the PAC-12 in its last year and went to the Rose Bowl." But if I'm reading it correctly, the only way they are doing that is if they make the playoff since it is part of the playoff rotation this year instead of hosting the traditional PAC-12/Big 10 game.

 

[Pilgrim]

The drive to win it all always drove me nuts. The game of football is a great way to learn how to strive to be better, especially through teamwork, The idea one must be champion to have a successful season is sad. Don't get me wrong I loved it when my team (UCF) won it all in 2017 . If we win more than half our games this year it will be a great year.

Get this pinko out of here!!!

 

[Pilgrim]

I liked college football better back when the conference championship was the real goal, followed by a bowl victory, and a national championship was more of a "nice to have" than a "must win."

Then everybody could sit around the barber shop and argue about who the real champion was since there was often no way to resolve it on the field.

 

[0isez]

NCAA didn't have the sand to disturb the SEC or the ACC, because if Clemson didn't play the Gamecocks anymore, nobody would show up for work the next Monday in protest.

 

[Logan]

So I don't follow football at all and a lot of the stuff (okay, all of the stuff) in these videos went over my head, but I have a feeling they would be appreciated here as I get the impression they are fairly clever:

 

[Pilgrim]

So I don't follow football at all and a lot of the stuff (okay, all of the stuff) in these videos went over my head, but I have a feeling they would be appreciated here as I get the impression they are fairly clever:

That guy is hilarious. Or at least the videos I've watched are. Here's one about realignment. He should have put something about LSU wanting the Kentucky game back. Before the SEC went to divisional play, we played them every year, but did not play Florida and Auburn every year. We tended to be worse back then too and rarely in the national conversation, so I don't guess it really matters. But there were a lot of complaints when Florida was consistently a contender. He should have included an argument about keeping divisional play and putting Alabama and Auburn in the East and OU and Texas in the West too, which is how it should be. But LSU etc complaining about that also assumes that OU and Texas will never reach the level of Alabama, which is doubtful in the NIL era.