Big 12 could put the Pac-12 out of its misery by expanding to 16 teams | Opinion
The Big 12 and Pac-12 have a symbiotic relationship.
Heck, I don’t know if that's true. I don't even really know what symbiotic means. Interaction between different organisms living in close physical association?
I guess that’s true, if you’re from back East and believe that Texas and California are neighbors, that Oklahoma City and Salt Lake City are virtual twin cities, and that it’s a mere bus ride from Lawrence, Kansas, to Boulder, Colorado. A 585-mile bus ride.
But the Big 12 and the Pac-12 long have been lumped together, as college football’s western frontier. Often in conflict.
Twelve summers ago, the Pac-10 Conference tried to kill the Big 12. Took out a shiv, stuck it in the Big 12’s back and watched the blood flow.
A year later, the Pac-12 came back to finish the job, but the Big 12 again avoided disaster.
And in summer 2021, the Pac-12 needed no knife. A simple phone call would have scattered the Big 12 to the winds. Now we sit in summer 2022. Same two conferences. Same weapons. Only this time, it’s the Big 12 holding the shiv and the phone.
Remarkably, the Big 12 has gained the high ground in its long waltz with its western neighbor. Conference realignment has crazy twists and turns, and while we all know the name-brand schools always come out on top, the leagues offer intriguing curveballs.
The Pac-12 might die. Not at the hands of the Big Ten, which last week swiped USC and UCLA, effective 2024. But at the hands of the Big 12, which a year ago seemed on life support itself.
A variety of reports say the Big 12 is talking this week with Arizona State, Arizona, Colorado and Utah about fleeing the Pac-12. Those four additions would create a 16-team Big 12 that suddenly would be the most stable league this side of the Big Ten and Southeastern Conference, which seek global domination of collegiate gridirons.
Even Oregon and Washington are being mentioned as potential Big 12 targets, though the Ducks and Huskies would hold their noses at joining the Big 12 and would stand at the Big Ten’s gate, hat in hand, until the bitter end.
Still, Oregon and Washington would be worth the risk. If they joined the Big 12 and the Big Ten suddenly waited on Notre Dame and the SEC waited on the Big Ten, perhaps some stability could settle in, and the Big 12 would have some combination of Oregon, Oklahoma State, Utah, Baylor, Cincinnati, Kansas State, Brigham Young, Texas Christian and Washington.
That’s not Alabama, Georgia, Oklahoma and Florida, but it’s not a bad football league. It would be quite a remarkable rally by the Big 12, which had its eulogies written a year ago when OU and Texas announced they were headed for the SEC.
A variety of Big 12 schools — Oklahoma State included — hoped for a Pac-12 lifeboat, and the Pac-12 could have toppled the Big 12 merely by issuing a few invitations.
But the Pac-12 stood pat. USC didn’t want to share a league with Middle America hamlets like Stillwater or Manhattan, Stanford and Cal-Berkeley wanted no partnerships with land-grant institutions, and the Big 12 was left standing. In tatters, but standing.
It’s Androcles and the lion, all over again, except the Big 12 might show no coliseum mercy.
A 16-team Big 12 — even without the plums of Oregon and Washington — could emerge as the nation’s No. 3 conference. Why not?
The Atlantic Coast Conference is beset with lackluster brands. Syracuse. Boston College. Wake Forest. Georgia Tech. Duke. The ACC is being held together by contract, not desire. The ACC’s grant of rights — in which the league controls a school’s television revenue, even if said school bolts for another conference — is in effect through 2036. That’s a long time for a league to sit knowing members like Clemson and Florida State are making goo-goo eyes at the SEC.
The Pac-12 is like the Big 12 circa 2021. On the edge of a cliff.
Meanwhile, the Big 12 found some solace in newcomers Brigham Young, Cincinnati, Houston and Central Florida, who come aboard in 2023. Plus the Big 12 knows none of its members are being courted.
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What was it Jimmy Soul’s old malt-shop tune said? If you want to be happy for the rest of your life, never make a pretty woman your wife.
All of this infidelity could change, of course. The Pac-12 looks no more gone than the Big 12 looked gone last summer.
Heck, no league seemed more doomed than the Big 12 a decade ago, when the Pac-12 came after six members in 2010 and landed only Colorado. The Pac-12 added Utah to get an even number, then redoubled its efforts and came after Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas and Texas Tech in 2011.
But the Southwest schools stayed in the, you know, Southwest. The Big 12 survived and the Pac-12 might still.
The Pac-12 could regroup with its 10 members, add Boise State and San Diego State, and still have a viable league. Oregon and Washington aren’t terrible cornerstones, the Rose Bowl tie probably survives and networks are going to need content.
What the Pac-12 might not have is an avenue to the College Football Playoff. Who knows what the playoff will look like after 2025? But the Pac-12 (and ACC) foolishly joined the Big Ten in submarining the 12-team proposal, which came with six automatic berths for conference champions.
No way will the SEC and Big Ten offer that kind of access in subsequent playoff proposals. Playoff scraps are the best the Big 12, Pac and ACC can get.
An expanded Big 12 would not be in the same hemisphere financially with the Big Ten and SEC, but again, networks have to show something. A 16-school Big 12 might be able to play some networks against each other at the negotiation table. Not that they would be talking SEC/Big Ten money, but the Big 12 potentially could reap much more than originally thought in the dark days when Oklahoma and Texas first set sail.
The script has flipped. The Big 12 seems to have a future. The Pac-12, not so much.