Collapse of the PAC-12: Oregon State & Washington State left in the dust

[BKarchitect]

Colorado to Colorado State is a drop but not by that much. San Diego St & Fresno St are both probably as valuable as the Arizona schools.

Wondering if they're making a play to bring back some combination of the schools who moved to ACC or BXII. USC, Oregon & Washington are gone gone gone. UCLA I'd say is 97% locked in to B1G but less secure. Cal & Stanford in ACC makes no sense and if ACC has any implosion these 2 could be top of the line to get back to a geographic conference, say 60% chance to PAC. Of the 4 that left to BXII, No need for Colorado with Colorado St. I would think that Utah and the Arizona schools would always be welcome back but those 3 may be good in the new conference, say 20% change to PAC.

Otherwise, 2 other schools would need to likely come from Texas & area. UTEP, UTSA, North Texas, Rice, Tulane, Memphis, Tulsa.

Nobody is leaving the Big 12 or ACC to join PAC2.0. That’s like a Big 12 fan saying there’s a 20% chance Mizzou or Nebraska would come back to the Big 12. It’s nonsense.

I’m kinda glad the PAC is surviving as a brand. There will be some fun football and I actually hope they keep it small and regional, even though they probably won’t. An 8-10 team, all Pacific/Mountain based tight-knit regional conference with the best of the best G5 schools in the western half of the country and no bottom feeders would create a great experience and rivalries and would be a nice change of pace from the super conference setup. The problem with the current G5 conferences is once you get past the top programs, things get dire. Keep this new PAC tight and right. Don’t just try to be the new AAC with simply a center of gravity moved west.

All that said, anybody thinking PAC2.0 is not a G5 or some sort of threat to poach current P5 schools is simply daydreaming. There’s a pecking order whether we like it or not.

 

[No Fun Shogun]

Colorado to Colorado State is a drop but not by that much. San Diego St & Fresno St are both probably as valuable as the Arizona schools.

Wondering if they're making a play to bring back some combination of the schools who moved to ACC or BXII. USC, Oregon & Washington are gone gone gone. UCLA I'd say is 97% locked in to B1G but less secure. Cal & Stanford in ACC makes no sense and if ACC has any implosion these 2 could be top of the line to get back to a geographic conference, say 60% chance to PAC. Of the 4 that left to BXII, No need for Colorado with Colorado St. I would think that Utah and the Arizona schools would always be welcome back but those 3 may be good in the new conference, say 20% change to PAC.

Otherwise, 2 other schools would need to likely come from Texas & area. UTEP, UTSA, North Texas, Rice, Tulane, Memphis, Tulsa.

Colorado State is a pretty massive drop from Colorado in terms of finances and money coming in, San Diego and Fresno are much less valuable than Arizona schools, and the money difference between the old Pac 12 and the Big Ten was more than enough of a reason for UCLA to bolt, there's zero chance that a significantly weaker financial situation for a new Pac would remotely draw anyone back.

ACC is a hobbled mess and it's only a matter of time before the Big Ten and SEC swoop in on them and the Big Twelve picks what they want from the scraps, so if Cal and Stanford are left sitting on the sidelines again they make sense.

But to be clear, from a purely financial standpoint, this is no longer a power conference, and it isn't one by a long shot. If even the Big Twelve came knocking, any of the schools would jump out for them in a heartbeat.

 

[Kirk Van Houten]

Hard to split off from University of Nevada (Reno) aka UNR.

After latest realignment moves, which other schools will the Pac-12 try to scoop up?

The league wants to be known as the “best of the rest” outside of the power four leagues. So which other schools fit the bill? What kind of ripple effect will this all have on college sports?

sports.yahoo.com

PAC12 has to get to minimum 8 teams by summer 2026 to be in FBS discussion.

A few possibilities mentioned in article. Some political, some geographic.

Might be to expensive the fees for FCS schools

 

[GKJ]

Colorado to Colorado State is a drop but not by that much. San Diego St & Fresno St are both probably as valuable as the Arizona schools.

Wondering if they're making a play to bring back some combination of the schools who moved to ACC or BXII. USC, Oregon & Washington are gone gone gone. UCLA I'd say is 97% locked in to B1G but less secure. Cal & Stanford in ACC makes no sense and if ACC has any implosion these 2 could be top of the line to get back to a geographic conference, say 60% chance to PAC. Of the 4 that left to BXII, No need for Colorado with Colorado St. I would think that Utah and the Arizona schools would always be welcome back but those 3 may be good in the new conference, say 20% change to PAC.

Otherwise, 2 other schools would need to likely come from Texas & area. UTEP, UTSA, North Texas, Rice, Tulane, Memphis, Tulsa.

They would definitely take Colorado back

 

[oknazevad]

It could happen if UNLV changes their name to Nevada Tech and their nickname to Blackjacks.

Neither of those would have jack squat effect on the political situation.

And theirs is absolutely zero reason for UNLV to change its name. Vegas is world famous. No one really gives a damn about Nevada as a name.

I'll give you dropping the Lost Cause BS "Rebels" nickname. That's just stupid apologia for treasonous racists.

 

[PCSPounder]

The issue with UNLV is certain pols who don’t want UN (your father’s UNR) left behind. Of course, we saw how that played out in California and there’s some reason to think the Nevada legislature will have to buckle here.

Not that stranger things haven’t happened.

Also… no, despite Ross Dellenger hinting that a new Pac might get an autobid, I have serious doubts about that happening. I also question if the conference will land north of $10M per school per year. But that’s considerably better than the current Mountain West. Also, this act happening at this time helps the Pac jump the Mountain West for media contract priority, meaning the MWC will get another pay cut while media gets mostly (sideyes Colorado State) a better slate of games. In the end, the MWC was caught thinking they could protect Wyoming and New Mexico without losing their marquee schools.

 

[willy702]

Seems like they will go after all their former members but have no takers. Then it will be time to call UNLV and New Mexico. Yeah its not exactly a group of marquee programs but the Pac2 were the dregs of the conference as well. Looking any further east of the I-25 corridor makes little sense, only SMU would have been worth it but they are gone. Will feel like the earlier days of the MWC but that's probably good. With only 8 teams every program can go raise funds by setting up non-conference games for nice paydays.

And really UNR holding things up makes little sense. Three states were supposedly going to try to block exits from the Pac 12 by insisting teams take their little brothers and none succeeded. How is Nevada going to be any different?

 

[LadyStanley]

https://x.com/i/web/status/1834426381125722307

More on unlv and unr

Paywall

 

[TheLegend]

For now….. they’re just the Pac-1/2

https://x.com/i/web/status/1834217156432855110

 

[DoyleG]

They're being selective because they don't want San Jose State and it's shitty facilities or Hawaii and the travel or Wyoming and it being Wyoming.

Hawaii will be in the mix when the wrecking ball goes on Aloha Stadium. The prominence of the program in the state and the prospect for visiting spectators offset any travel issues.

 

[willy702]

Hawaii will be in the mix when the wrecking ball goes on Aloha Stadium. The prominence of the program in the state and the prospect for visiting spectators offset any travel issues.

Hawaii does nothing for the conference and it's members. The travel cost is a burden and remember it's not just football they play. All the other sports fly commercial and that's why schools out in hard to reach places suck for everyone. UNLV is the easiest destination for any other school.

It will be interesting to see what the conference does next. There is real value to being an 8 team conference these days. Lots of paydays are out there to pursue and it gives teams a chance to play more big boys and add that strength of schedule to their resume. I don't know if it will win out in the end but I think it's better than these crazy 14 or 16 team alignments. Especially if there's an auto bid awaiting it. I still think UNR is just bluffing, no way UNLV says no thanks if at the end they are the only one that gets invited. If the PAC decides to go to 10 or 12 it might not matter, UNR might be added anyways. But the two schools have mostly been apart in their history so to act like they can't be separated is not true. Can always make sure a non conference rivalry game is played

 

[GindyDraws]

For both conferences, there's not a whole lot of options for poaching in the FCS level. The Big Sky is arguably one of the best conferences in the level, regularly pumping out contenders in Montana and Montana State but they don't have the resources for FBS play, plus they have a similar problem that made Wyoming persona non grata for Pac 12 selection being out in the middle of nowhere. Ironically, the best selections for the Mountain West would be the two Utah schools in the UAC (and by extension the WAC). Their facilities likely aren't great but they're close to Utah State and UNLV.

 

[KevFu]

RE: Big East

If you have a bunch of programs that have a shot at the dance very year, even if some years they won't make it, that's a good thing.

Having NCAA caliber teams not making the NCAA tournament -- and not collecting the TV loot payout that comes with that -- is very bad for a conference trying to keep up with big rich programs that get more money because they football.

If an above average program team routinely fails to make the NCAA tournament, they will cease being an above average program because it will be a less attractive destination for players.

Which is what happened to DePaul, Georgetown and St. John's. They have teams taking turns looking worse than they actually are when they don't need to.

That doesn't make sense though. There will be natural tiers built based on results.

Ah, yes. You're SO CLOSE to getting it... That's how conference play works: They can't ALL win in games against each other. So the tiers emerge based on results. Last season:

T1 -UConn, Marquette, Creighton
T2 - Hall, SJU, Prov, Nova
T3 - Xavier, Butler
T4 - Grown, DePaul

But the tiers WITHIN the Big East conference aren't relative to the tiers of college basketball.

If you play 12 games against teams that are NCAA locks or on the NCAA bubble and go 4-8 or better, and then go 16-2 or better against non-conference opponents or the bad teams in your conference; you're 20-10 or better, have four marquee wins. You might be just below the cutline, but definitely in the discussion for an NCAA bid. Anything better than that is an NCAA lock.

Butler went 7-14 vs NCAA/Bubble teams (same .333 percentage as 4-8), and went 11-0 vs everyone else. They were not remotely close to being on the bubble, despite beating NCAA 6 seed Texas Tech and 10-seed Boise State OOC. They also lost to #18 Michigan State and #19 FAU by five OOC. You watch them play and you're like "That's an NCAA team"

But they get HAMMERED with 12 losses to Big East teams (reg season/BE Tourney) and they have no mathematical chance of a bid.


I did the same math for A-10 fans who wanted to dump LaSalle and replace them with Siena, who in the MAAC have a much better record and more NCAA bids. When you go down their RPI/NET W-L vs each level of opponent, their WIN PERCENTAGES are the same: Siena and La Salle beat a top 50 opponent like 18% of the time. Teams 51-150 like 40% of the time, and they beat bad teams like 85% of the time.

But in the A-10 and Big Five, La Salle is going like 1-5 vs Top 50 teams, 4-10 vs teams 51-150, and 9-2 vs bad teams.

And in the MAAC, Siena is playing a Top 50 team like once every 5 years. They're 4-10 vs teams 51-150 and 18-4 vs bad teams every year; so Siena (22-14) just looks better than La Salle (14-17). Siena wins MAAC tourneys because they play a Top 100 program in the MAAC final, while La Salle has to beat four in a row.


You don't want BAD TEAMS in the conference, but the Big East has made DePaul a bad team, while their 8, 9, 10 teams are still rocking 9-2 OOC records. You can find programs who win 80% of OOC games against bad teams.

If St. Bonaventure and Duquesne joined the Big East, they're gonna schedule 10 OOC wins, play ONE tough opponent and one mid-major. Go 9-3 at worst so when they're 6-12 in an unbalance Big East schedule, they're .500. And Those two being easier opponents than playing UConn a second time would put at least seven Big East teams into the dance.

 

[KevFu]

Back to the Pac-6.

Nobody's remotely going to look at a truncated and patched together Pac 12 as anything more than a maybe good midmajor conference with the schools mentioned. This is basically just an admission that the corpse of the Pac 12 just has better national marketability than the Mountain West.

Right, but by taking the best of the MWC, it's basically the Pac-12 vs the AAC for the last CFP auto.

The issue with UNLV is certain pols who don’t want UN (your father’s UNR) left behind. Of course, we saw how that played out in California and there’s some reason to think the Nevada legislature will have to buckle here.

Not that stranger things haven’t happened.

Also… no, despite Ross Dellenger hinting that a new Pac might get an autobid, I have serious doubts about that happening. I also question if the conference will land north of $10M per school per year. But that’s considerably better than the current Mountain West. Also, this act happening at this time helps the Pac jump the Mountain West for media contract priority, meaning the MWC will get another pay cut while media gets mostly (sideyes Colorado State) a better slate of games. In the end, the MWC was caught thinking they could protect Wyoming and New Mexico without losing their marquee schools.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but they HAVE the auto-bid; it's just on hiatus during the two-year waiver period, right? The top 5 conferences get autos. If it's the Top Six that get autos, they're golden.

Hawaii will be in the mix when the wrecking ball goes on Aloha Stadium. The prominence of the program in the state and the prospect for visiting spectators offset any travel issues.

The issue with Hawaii is that the schedule headaches aren't worth it.

That's the issue moreso than the travel. Yeah, it's long to get to Hawai'i, but it's basically long to get to tons of places not over water, like San Diego to Boise. Or if they want Tulane, Memphis, North Texas and/or UTSA.

The non-football sports can go play TWO of those guys on a weekend. But you're spending a weekend and the cost flying to Hawai'i to play ONE volleyball/soccer match, or ONE basketball game.

And what do you get out of having Hawai'i in your TV package? Only psychopath sports junkies like me are tuning it at 11:59 pm ET to their home games.

 

[Big Z Man 1990]

Neither of those would have jack squat effect on the political situation.

And theirs is absolutely zero reason for UNLV to change its name. Vegas is world famous. No one really gives a damn about Nevada as a name.

I'll give you dropping the Lost Cause BS "Rebels" nickname. That's just stupid apologia for treasonous racists.

Plenty of states have a (state name) State or (state name) Tech as one of their top two college athletic programs. Nevada would just be joining them.

 

[GKJ]

 

[No Fun Shogun]

I get that they're desperate for markets and brands, but it seems like the Pac-# is too small and shaky to reach out from the Pacific to just past the Mississippi.

Plus, I'm not sure if adding non-power schools is going to move the needle to the liklihood of keeping an auto-bid longterm.

Kinda getting Frankenstein's monster vibes here.

 

[Big McLargehuge]

If the Montana schools don't wind up in the Mountain West I'm going to be furious.

I think another fracture seems incredibly likely, if not already in motion, and the G5 winds ends up as a supercharged version of what the FCS has been if they set up their own playoff structure. That'll leave little difference between the remants of the FCS and DII and potential reclassification down there. The big fish in a small pond scenario only works if there's a pond to play in. Either stay/dropdown and content yourself being a Grand Valley State-level program appealing only to those in Missoula while everyone else who contends moves up as soon as they can or move up and play with competition we're already good enough to beat. I mean the little brother of this pairing literally just beat New Mexico while outgaining them nearly 2:1.

The issues for the Montana schools is the need to add scholarships and sports, something that would be made a hell of a lot easier if the MWC invests some of that nestegg there. Both Montana football programs sell out their games pretty much regardless of who they're playing and have facilities that'd play well in the Mountain West, it's just the need for new sports in a region with few viable options.

I just get this feeling that it's going to be someone like Sacramento State that gets brought out of the Big Sky to fill a need. Ignore that Sacramento State is a commuter school with lousy fan support, no history of athletic success, and high school-caliber facilities. They wouldn't need to add any sports to move up and their football stadium is large enough to at least be a temporary venue, their basketball arena most definitely is not. They'd need to either find a way to play in the Kings arena with most of the seating caped off or build a new on-campus stadium.
Despite having a lot of stuff that could be considered bad and unappealing...they play in a media market magnitudes larger than the Montana schools do. I just worry that they'll focus on potential viewership and not actual viewership. The entire state of Montana shuts down for Griz-Cat and those teams are, far and away, the two most popular teams of any sport in the state. The media market is tiny, but you can count on those people watching. Tons of volatility with commuter schools that have long struggled to get students to go to games.

I just hate how few options there are for schools in the west. Far lesser programs with 0 actual history have come into the Sun Belt and immediately grown into respect, while there's one possible path for a western school and they've never added an FCS team in their 25 years. The WAC served a purpose that it's successor sees itself as too good for, even though there's at least 4 options in the FCS that could be tagged without the conference losing much, if any, quality after losing the programs they lost. Montana, Montana State, North Dakota State, & South Dakota State would all step in and be above what Colorado State has been for the past decade and a half. The Dakota schools make less geographical sense, but are the obvious jewels of the FCS over the past decade and likely carry much of that over to being a G5 program. Still, knowing the MW I fully expect them to be prioritizing poaching mediocre FBS programs in Texas rather than promoting regional powerhouses within their footprint that have been too good for their level of play for a long time now.

 

[Big McLargehuge]

I get that they're desperate for markets and brands, but it seems like the Pac-# is too small and shaky to reach out from the Pacific to just past the Mississippi.

Plus, I'm not sure if adding non-power schools is going to move the needle to the liklihood of keeping an auto-bid longterm.

Kinda getting Frankenstein's monster vibes here.

I think their play is to accept that the automatic bid is gone, but they can still position themselves well to get that 5th berth.

There's no way the Pac-12 could come out of this with anything approaching the kind of prestige they used to have, but they can still attempt to be the best of the rest and positioned well for an auto bid. Doing it this way certainly lowers the risk from the Mountain West of moving ahead of them. The full reverse-merger option likely would have fallen below the AAC in terms of average quality, so by paying more to get the wheat without the chaff signals that they're looking for the right programs rather than the most, at least.

Either way the landscape of college football out west continues to be more and more fraught. There's no path to the Pac-12's former glory without the LA schools, so they have to adapt and survive. So far they're doing that. It's just hard to comprehend the aftershocks that exodus will continue to have for years and years. My hatred of the mega realignments would certainly soften if its butterfly effect is the push finally needed to get Montana to make the jump. If Montana is left without a dance partner and is still in the Big Sky when this decade ends I'll scream.

 

[Big McLargehuge]

For both conferences, there's not a whole lot of options for poaching in the FCS level. The Big Sky is arguably one of the best conferences in the level, regularly pumping out contenders in Montana and Montana State but they don't have the resources for FBS play, plus they have a similar problem that made Wyoming persona non grata for Pac 12 selection being out in the middle of nowhere. Ironically, the best selections for the Mountain West would be the two Utah schools in the UAC (and by extension the WAC). Their facilities likely aren't great but they're close to Utah State and UNLV.

I don't want to live in a world with 5-6 Utah schools in the FBS and 0 in Montana.

For better or worse neither of those Utah UAH/WAC schools are in the populated part of the state. St. George & Cedar City are both roughly as populated as Missoula & Bozeman are, respectfully. None of them move the needle much, but those Utah programs also have no history to speak of. Utah Tech was a DII program called Dixie State for some incomprehensible reason just a few years ago and their football team remains DII quality after a few years in the FCS and have an all-time winning percentage under 33%. Southern Utah willingly left the Big Sky Conference largely because of travel concerns, but I'd at least put them in the candidates list because I can see Southern Utah having the desire. They already play 1-2 FBS schools every year. I think they could grow into it, but I don't think they're there yet.

Weber State being the other Utah football school seems unlikely to move up, if only because they're in Utah and to an extent BYU territory. Sure seems like something a TV exec would pretend that they'd be unlocking the Salt Lake City market by adding Weber State, though.

 

[Big Z Man 1990]

The four American schools the Pac-12 should take are Memphis, South Florida, Temple, and Tulane, all of whom I have linked to Big 12 expansion in the past.

With the exception of Tulane, all the schools I mentioned have history as BCS AQ schools in the Big East and/or American. Memphis and Temple also bring in historic basketball programs, and Temple brings in the coveted Philadelphia market.

 

[GKJ]

The four American schools the Pac-12 should take are Memphis, South Florida, Temple, and Tulane, all of whom I have linked to Big 12 expansion in the past.

With the exception of Tulane, all the schools I mentioned have history as BCS AQ schools in the Big East and/or American. Memphis and Temple also bring in historic basketball programs, and Temple brings in the coveted Philadelphia market.

Nobody in Philly is watching Temple play anyone much less watching them play Pac 12 wannabes

 

[Big Z Man 1990]

Nobody in Philly is watching Temple play anyone much less watching them play Pac 12 wannabes

As it stands, Philly is the largest market without a P4 team - that's if the Pac-12 gets that status back with expansion.

 

[GKJ]

As it stands, Philly is the largest market without a P4 team - that's if the Pac-12 gets that status back with expansion.

They ain’t watching it, bruv

 

[GindyDraws]

I don't want to live in a world with 5-6 Utah schools in the FBS and 0 in Montana.

For better or worse neither of those Utah UAH/WAC schools are in the populated part of the state. St. George & Cedar City are both roughly as populated as Missoula & Bozeman are, respectfully. None of them move the needle much, but those Utah programs also have no history to speak of. Utah Tech was a DII program called Dixie State for some incomprehensible reason just a few years ago and their football team remains DII quality after a few years in the FCS and have an all-time winning percentage under 33%. Southern Utah willingly left the Big Sky Conference largely because of travel concerns, but I'd at least put them in the candidates list because I can see Southern Utah having the desire. They already play 1-2 FBS schools every year. I think they could grow into it, but I don't think they're there yet.

Weber State being the other Utah football school seems unlikely to move up, if only because they're in Utah and to an extent BYU territory. Sure seems like something a TV exec would pretend that they'd be unlocking the Salt Lake City market by adding Weber State, though.

I'm not advocating for a ton of Utah schools. I'm just saying this is the path we as a society may end up taking.