The Pac-12 Lives

To realign another day

What if I told you that the Pac-2 was now the Pac-6?

That would be the hook to my 30 for 30 trailer for the sports movie comeback story that is the Pac-12. Against all odds, they have risen once more.

For those who aren’t as keyed into this, until quite recently, the Pac-12 was one of the marquee conferences in college sports, featuring most of the best west coast schools in the country. USC, UCLA, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Colorado, Utah, Cal, Stanford. That crew.

Every last one of them left the conference as of this football season, leaving a once-proud conference — indeed, the conference with by far the most national titles across all sports — with an empty cupboard.

It was thought to be the end. A conference bereft is a sad, sad thing. The sense was essentially: why don’t we just put this thing out of its misery?

The only ones left were a pair of abandoned States — Oregon and Washington — who’d watched their brand-name rivals head off to the Big Ten. Left behind, they were also left with a decision. They could let the conference die and head for greener pastures themselves. Or they could try to rebuild it, in the hopes that they (they being the remaining social climbers of the Mountain West) would come.

They went for door #2, and they’ve been rewarded for it with a wealth of States. Truly, an embarrassment of riches. As I said in the trailer, we’re looking at a Pac-6 now, and it’s made up of Oregon State, Washington State, Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, and San Diego State.

In this era of hyperactive movement — be it players, coaches, or schools — it’d be easy to discount the fact that the Pac-12 managed to find some reinforcements after all. But this really is a pretty miraculous case. And they’ve must put one hell of a sell on those four new members, because they will be paying exorbitant fees ($18M apiece) to leave the Mountain West.

Those schools are willing to do that because they’ll make it up within two years of getting higher disbursements from their new conference, which are thought to be in the $10M range.

As always, this is a question of money. The Pac-12 isn’t going to survive because people felt bad for it. They’re going to make it because they could give their new members a better deal than they had. So turns the carousel.

And it’s not done yet. The Pac-6 does still need to become the Pac-8 in order to comply with NCAA regulations. They need that many schools at a minimum, and they don’t have all day to find it. They have until July 1, 2026. It’s a while, yes, but it’s not that long, not with TV negotiations to work out too.

The Pac-12’s goal is to reestablish themselves as a Power Five conference, after losing that long-held distinction with the departure of… pretty much everyone.

And I don’t mean to discourage, but let’s be real: that’s an uphill climb. They could pull in some other schools, but no one on the level of who they’ve lost is walking through that door anytime soon.

So they might have to bet on some up-and-comers. The top names I’ve seen dropped are Tulane and Memphis, the class of the American Athletic Conference, or AAC. They, too, will presumably be asking for proof that a move would be worth their trouble($).

If not them, the new Pac-12 could try and poach back two members they already lost. Cal and Stanford ran off with the ACC last year, but given all the turmoil over money there, it’s not so far a stretch to think they might slink on back. What that would involve in terms of breaking their brand-new deals, I don’t know. Just don’t rule it out if they think there’s reason enough to do it.

The lesson here is that realignment may be chaos, but when everything’s this dynamic, you’re never out of the game for too long. There’s your next move, just around the corner. For the Pac-12 then, all the chaos has not ended up being a total pit. Right now? Looks more like a ladder.

Also, This

📱 The ultimate Woj Bomb is the last one, leaving me wondering whether the St. Bonaventure front office is the new hub of access sports journalism. I fully endorse all the well-earned praise he’s been getting in the days since that announcement, but since I’m already on the record with this complaint: at least we won’t be subjected to whatever that dumb odyssey with Dan Hurley was this year.

🏈 I’ve complained here about the sad state of QB play in the NFL, and I loved

Ethan Strauss

’ piece on it this week, which is excellent. Whatever the explanation is, though, it makes me a little sad to see how far Bryce Young has already fallen. I generally don’t agree with the prevailing thought that your young QB should ideally sit rather than play. Get your reps. That’s how you get better. On the other hand, these Panthers increasingly remind me of the early 00s Lions teams that killed Joey Harrington’s career on arrival. And look, maybe he wouldn’t have succeeded anywhere. I’d buy that. Still, he might’ve had the worst chance there, and that’s what he got. This is impossible to unravel, and I will just briefly note in my own defense that I always liked CJ Stroud over Young coming out, but I didn’t think the gap would be anywhere near this big. Hope he gets another shot, which, barring disaster, he should and will.

🐦‍🔥 And on that note, how about a tentative, qualified acknowledgement that we have seen a modest uptick in QB redemption arcs? Jared Goff, Geno Smith, Baker Mayfield, even Derek Carr so far — these guys are playing pretty well, and if you’re really feeling saucy, you could take a flyer on Sam Darnold too. We love a comeback story. Good for those guys.

⚾ I will cop to tuning out baseball a little lately as we head into the final month, but I did have an eye on Ohtani’s push for the first-ever 50/50 season. Because why shouldn’t he find more historic stuff to do while he can’t pitch? I started this entry earlier this week, with something like “I think he’ll get there.” So of course he picks a single game against the Marlins to finish this in one go. 6/6, 3 HR, 2 SB, 10 RBI. Done deal. And while I can hear myself sounding like Kevin O’Connor (he of new Yahoo! Sports fame) reminding everyone not to take LeBron for granted, I keep coming back to what a once-in-a-lifetime athlete we’re seeing at work here. And he’s going to the playoffs. Good stuff.

👕 Random observation/question — am I imagining this, or has there been an unusually high amount of ripped undershirt tackles in NFL games lately? The ones where the DB or whoever gets a hand on the ballcarrier’s base… layer…? and it stretches out to a cartoonish length before it rips? I just saw another one in the Jets-Pats game, and I’m starting to wonder if anyone else is noticing this.