The Pac-12 era is now over.
Oregon, Washington, UCLA and USC are officially Big Ten teams as of Monday, while Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah are headed to the Big 12. Cal and Stanford are now also members of the ACC in some form, and Oregon State and Washington State are the last two teams standing.
July 1 is another milestone in the vastly changing landscape of college sports. We’ve all known for months that the Pac-12 as we know it was falling apart. But it’s still so sad that it’s finally happening.
The league that called itself the “Conference of Champions” was an incredibly fun league, even if it was marred by dysfunction and a lack of College Football Playoff appearances. After Oregon made the first four-team playoff, Washington was the only other program to make the CFP in the past decade. In total, the Pac-12 has only made three playoff appearances in the past decade.
We could always count on “Pac-12 After Dark” to produce magical and chaotic moments at the end of marathon college football Saturdays. Who can forget UCLA beating Washington State 67-63 in 2019 with 50 second-half points? The Bruins trailed by 32 at one point, but won despite WSU QB Anthony Gordon’s nine TD passes as the Cougars turned the ball over six times.
Or how about in 2014, when Arizona State made a big comeback with a Hail Mary from Mike Bercovici to Jaelen Strong to beat USC?
All 12 teams that called the old Pac-12 home for years will still play regular nightcaps in 2024 and beyond. But it just won’t feel the same when UCLA hosts Minnesota and Rutgers visits USC.
We can blame greed and capitalism in “amateur” athletics for the conference’s demise. When it became clear that the dozens of schools wouldn’t get the media rights deal they wanted for the 2024 football season and beyond, UCLA and USC fatally wounded the conference when they announced they were headed to the Big Ten and the land of TV. wealth in the summer of 2022.
A year later, the Pac-12 was placed on hospice when it became clear it could not survive without its Los Angeles schools. Unable to secure a suitable new media deal, Colorado left for the Big 12, and other defections followed out of necessity.
The losers in all of this are Oregon State and Washington State. The two schools are scheduled to play a schedule consisting mostly of Mountain West opponents in 2024, and they will continue to fly the Pac-12 flag as long as they can. But a two-team conference isn’t sustainable for long.
Who knows, maybe the Pac-12 will be reborn, with Mountain West schools joining OSU and WSU as part of a Pac-12 Part Deux. But if that happens, it’ll feel even stranger than an 18-school Big Ten and a 16-school Big 12.
But that’s the new reality in college athletics. After all, Cal and Stanford now play in a conference that bears the name of the ocean on the other side of the country. Whatever makes the most money makes the most sense, even if it isn’t logical or well thought out.
Who’s going where in 2024?
-
Arizona: Pac-12 to Big 12
-
Arizona State: Pac-12 to Big 12
-
Army: independent of AAC (football only)
-
Cal: Pac-12 to ACC
-
Colorado: Pac-12 to Big 12
-
Kennesaw State: FCS to Conference USA
-
Oklahoma: Big 12 to SEC
-
Oregon: Pac-12 to Big Ten
-
SMU: AAC to ACC
-
Stanford: Pac-12 to ACC
-
Texas: Big 12 to SEC
-
UCLA: Pac-12 to Big Ten
-
USC: Pac-12 to Big Ten
-
Utah: Pac-12 to Big 12
-
Washington: Pac-12 to Big Ten
