The Pac-12 is “back and ready to once again be a part of an ever-changing world of college athletics” three years after “many thought the conference was gone for good,” according to Tyler King of the Colorado Springs GAZETTE. The league is “not going to look remotely like its heyday” without brand names like USC, UCLA and Oregon, but it is “also not just another conference.” Trying to “strike a balance between competing in a space above the rest of the conferences not a part of current Power Four while also being ready for whatever comes in the next round of conference realignment is delicate but something the new-look Pac-12 feels it’s uniquely positioned to do.” For the nine schools, particularly the eight football-playing members, there is “a lot in common.” But it is “on the gridiron where the new-look league will likely be defined.” There are shared levels of spending -- likely $20M-$30M each annually -- that “correspond with similarly high expectations in every sport.” Pac-12 Commissioner Teresa Gould will “always be open to potential expansion if a good fit arises.” However, the current belief is that a “lack of bloat in terms of conference membership is a good thing, especially in terms of access to the College Football Playoff” (Colorado Springs GAZETTE, 6/30).
FEELING NOSTALGIC: In San Diego, Mark Zeigler noted San Diego State is joining the Pac-12 after 27 years in the Mountain West Conference, and coaches and administrators have said “all the right things when asked about their level of nostalgia” for their old home. However, there is “little love lost” privately. Some of the school’s decision to leave was “rooted in ego and self-preservation, certainly, seeking at least the perception of higher ground as the tide of red ink rises around college athletics’ have-nots.” Some of it was a “growing impatience for promised merit-based revenue distribution and minimum financial standards for the Mountain West’s bottom-feeders.” SDSU and Boise State had “wanted out for more than a decade, convinced they had outgrown” the MWC. After unsuccessfully trying to join the Big East in football in 2012, the two schools “persuaded three other schools to bounce” this time. Zeigler: “It was, to hear coaches and administrators from the departees privately tell it, as much out of economics and exposure as exasperation. They were fed up” (SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE, 6/30).
FULL OF CHANGE: In Spokane, Vince Grippi wrote this “isn’t the old Pac-12,” but “just the latest iteration.” Change “has been the constant for the past 111 years” with the conference. Grippi: “Which begs the question, how long will this one thrive? Or survive?” The future of all college athletics is “so cloudy, so transient, even the idea of conference affiliation can’t be counted upon.” All that is certain is that there will be a Pac-12 that includes nine members in seven states -- eight schools that play football, with Gonzaga being a ninth basketball-playing institution. It is “not a powerful group, in the definition of that word that has become college athletics dogma, but it is solid.” Grippi: “As solid as anything can be considered in an ecosystem rocked by tremors yearly” (Spokane SPOKESMAN-REVIEW, 6/30). In Denver, Sean Keeler wrote the new Pac-12 “is a particularly curious marriage of oddball brethren.” The football membership, in particular, is “rooted in provincial programs that were snubbed by the Big Ten, Big 12 or ACC (Washington State and Oregon State) during their latest acquisition phase, or ‘big’ mid-majors (Boise State, Fresno State, CSU) that never quite made the cut to join the big boys, despite repeated pitches” (DENVER POST, 6/30).
SURVIVAL MODE: In San Jose, Jon Wilner wrote “nobody is more responsible for plotting and executing the Pac-12’s survival plan during those 14 calamitous months in which Oregon State and Washington State were adrift and alone” than retiring Oregon State AD Scott Barnes. With help from their presidents at the time -- Oregon State’s Jayathi Murthy and Washington State’s Kirk Schulz -- Barnes and then WSU AD Pat Chun “began to sift through the carnage and map a future.” Around the same time, Barnes and Chun “began to trust” Gould. Murthy and Schulz by the end of that February had negotiated former commissioner George Kliavkoff’s severance agreement and appointed Gould as his replacement. Barnes is retiring from his position on July 5 but won’t leave Corvallis, as he will “serve as senior advisor to the athletic department for another year” (San Jose MERCRY NEWS, 6/29).
