I interrupt this divorce to bring you a message about the sad demise of the Pac 12…
Most local followers of the Big 12 Conference seem to be besides themselves with joy over having swiped on Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah at the expense of the once-mighty, century-old sports conference on the West Coast.
I get it, chalk one up for the flyover crowd.
Because after losing Texas and Oklahoma two years ago and flirting with death for the second time in recent years – after Missouri and Texas A&M bolted theBig 12 for the SEC and Nebraska for the Big Ten and Colorado for the Pac 10 – the shoe was finally on the other foot.
That after college football powerhouse USC and hoops icon UCLA told the Pac 12 last year they’d be leaving after this year for the Big Ten.
The bottom line: Money talks and tradition and ethics walk.
At long last the good guys in the Big 12 – had a chance to, not just survive, but profit from the current chaos.
Those chickens came home to roost late last week when football powerhouses Oregon and Washington left the PAC 12 for the Big Ten and our Big 12 landed Utah and the Arizona schools.
Huzzah!
“The Big 12 is now the Big 16, let’s go, we did it!” crowed KCMO 810 AM morning show host Pete Mundo. “After months of drama, months of rumors, months of speculation, the Big 12 reportedly is picking up this week, Arizona, Arizona State and yes, Utah…Here’s a conference that over the last 15 years, if you’re a Big 12 fan, you have watched this conference be called dead, on death’s doorstep – it was going to cease to exist – and now the Big 12 Conference is solidly in the No. 3 position of power conferences. This truly amazing stuff. And it’s one of those things, if you’re a Big 12 fan, that makes you want to pinch yourself.”
Trouble is, Mundo’s wet-dream-come-true, comes at the expense of smaller schools like Oregon State and Washington State, that like KU after Mizzou bolted for big bucks in the SEC, found themselves unwanted by the Big Ten. Not that long ago, KU chewed its fingernails to a nub over how long the Big 12 might survive. And now those Pac 12 schools are facing an even worse fate.
That, after their longtime traditional rivals fled the Pac, leaving them in a financial crisis.
In other words, Mundo’s joyous celebration comes at the direct expense and loss to four colleges that like KU a few years back are not just worrying about their futures calamities, they’re living them out in real time.
“Let me acknowledge right up front, I am welcoming Arizona, Arizona State and Utah to the Big 12 Conference because I think.it makes the conference that much stronger,” says Jake Hatch of BYU’s Locked on Cougars show. “What I do not like and why I don’t like it, is the fact that the Pac 12 is now down to the Pac 4 and probably is all but dead…We have allowed college football to be so mismanaged overall and run by corporate tycoons who run TV networks, that we’ve lost some of the soul and identity of college football…Because they didn’t want to pay an entire conference on the western side of the United States of America, they pulled it apart at the seams, picked out the pieces they want and left the ‘corpse’ to die…”
Kinda gross, huh?
“But here’s the thing; we already don’t have a lot of representation in the college football realm in the western half of the United States. Now the vast majority of the population resides in the central and eastern time zone. I get that. But here’s the thing, it’s been a proud, proud conference, speaking of the PAC 12, that has 108 years of history, and after this upcoming season, for all intents and purposes it’s done. It’s DOA. And it sucks. I don’t know any other which way to say this, It hurts the overall regional aspect of what college football is out there.”
Regional aspects that don’t mean diddly to Fox Sports yakker Colin Cowherd.
Don’t get me wrong, Cowherd is smart, glib and highly paid by the sports media who threw the Pac 12 under the bus. In Cowherd’s world, traditions and regional rivalries are mundane relics of the past. All that matters now are the highest rated games and making sure the sexiest teams play each other in huge nationally televised games.
That’s all Cowherd wants to see, anyway, so he rationalizes his view by pointing to ratings.
As in more money…more money for the sports networks and more money for Cowherd and for the anointed schools.
The danger, according to Hatch:
“Could this happen down the road if the Big Ten and the SEC pull the Big 12 and the ACC apart? Abso-freaking-luely it could. That’s gotta terrify you….Who’s to say hat ESPN who’s running the SEC and Fox who’s running the Big 10 – who’s to say they don’t pick your corpse apart, speaking of your conference. That’s the concern you gotta have to have if you’re not in the Big Ten or SEC right now.
“What in the world are we allowing to happen to one of the great sports in all of American sports? College football is the No. 2 sport in America behind the NFL. Football reigns supreme in the United States. And we are allowing the 2nd most popular sports to be run by greed, manipulation, corrupt politics – whatever adjective or nefarious thing.”
Or as Locked Pac 12 host Spencer McLaughlin puts it:
“I’m a college football fan first and I do not like what’s happening to our sport,” he says. “My frustration comes in, in that I’ve been a college football fan my whole life. And I’ve rooted for this conference my whole life. And it’s always been kind of an us versus the world mentality, in the sense that we have been so detached from the rest of the college football world, and we’ve been just trying to just fight to stay relevant and we were getting there. We were making honest to god progress.”
As for Cowherd’s zeal over possible matchups like Oregon and Penn State, “I don’t give a rip about Penn State, I don’t care,” McLaughlin says. “Because I haven’t watched Oregon play Penn State since I was 5, that’s what I care about. That we as a country- and as a fan base of this sport – had built something that meant something to people and now it’s being taken away for greed, money and television. And I think that sucks; I really do.”
It’d be hilarious if Mizzou wants to come back to the Big 12..or Big 16 whatever the heck it’s called now..gotta do an end-around Okie and Texas.
Mizzou ain’t coming back…the m one differential is too great
Adapt or die, pussies. Quit whining about it. But it’s also hilarious to see the B12 somehow designating themselves as the #3 conference in the college football world. Pure hilarity. That conference hasn’t won a national championship in football since….when Texas beat USC? I’d take the ACC over the Big 12 anyday. The Big12 should rename themselves “The Conference of Misfit Toys”.
One thing I can promise you…there isn’t one single school left in the B12 that wouldn’t take an SEC or B1G invite if it came. Because they KNOW eventually that unless you are in one of those two conferences, you are not insulated from your conference being picked down to the bare bones like the PAC12. KSU and ISU especially should be thanking their lucky stars, because they were thisclose to being exactly where Wazzu and Oregon State are today….and still might be eventually. It’s not over yet, folks…the ride has just started for all those not in the SEC or B1G.
Too bad…
Losing regionality is a cross between sad meets lame.
I agree
Then don’t watch. No one will care. Don’t worry, you’ll still have your little “Sunflower Showdown” that no one outside the state of Kansas will give two shits about.
What’s eventually going to happen is the top 64 programs are going to split off into a “football only” conference where it’s a national thing like the NFL. All the rest of the sports at a school will then realign with a regional conference that makes geographical sense. (I’m sorry, but the men’s lacrosse team at UCLA doesn’t need to be playing at Rutgers on a Wednesday night.) Football only plays once a week, unlike other sports so travel isn’t that big of a deal. For instance, Mizzou plays in the SEC for all sports except wrestling. They played and dominated the MAC for years. Now they are back in the Big 12, and back to winning the conference. I would expect that to happen in all other sports as far as realignment. The current situation is untenable for the Olympic sports. This is all being driven by the $$$ for football games.
Myy Sunflower Showdown?
Are you mixing me up with somebody else> I went to Arizona dude and I’m not even very interested in their little showdown with ASU.
I did have fun poking fun at Mizzou zealots like Will Gregory and I do watch most regular season Chiefs games if I’m not busy, but, please.
All of this political stuff is interesting because it affects so many people and schools.
Nebraska, Colorado and Missouri have not fared well in their new conferences…which I’m going tp take a wild guess, probably bothers you no end. But hey, they’re making tons more money which has little to no effect on either of us, but if you like to fantasize about different companies and organizations bank accounts, more power top ya!
Agree with you on your overview and it’s definitely interesting – to some frustrating – to watch it all unfold.
Hey, just watched a YouTube on the fall of the Western Athletic Conference (The WAC) which is where Arizona was when I was there.
And I think this year, a lot of people will watch and care about the KU KSU game, based on KU having a halfway decent team for a change. People still cared about that game, even when KU was pretty competitive and KSU was a doormat.
Hey, it’s a game, dawg..
Hearne, you simply have to accept the fact that whatever struggles CU, NU, and MU have had are all about how they were running their program and the coaches they hired, and not the conference they joined. Hell NU went 9-4, 9-4, 10-4, & 9-4 their first 4 years in the B1G. Then they proceeded to shove their heads up their ass and fired Bo Pelini, and hired Mike Riley and it’s been a shitshow ever since. They’ve now hired someone who can actually get the job done and has proven so at his previous college stops. CU? LOL! They were terrible before they left the B12. Once Barnett retired and they hired Dan Hawkins, the program fell apart. They’ve had one winning season since 2005…and that was in the PAC12. So they are just as bad now as they were when they left. Moving to the PAC12 had NOTHING to do with it. I’ve already reviewed MU’s problems ad nauseum here. And again, it has everything to do with hiring the wrong coaches and not the SEC. They’ve made the SEC championship game multiple times since joining.
I “simply” have to accept your excuses, huh?
Well, you simply ought top stop rationalizing things to fit your narrative and inch out of that tiny limb you are avoiding and consider that all those years they were competitive – for however many reasons – are long gone. They lost recruiting advantages, they play against teams that few people much care about and their hiring if maybe a reflection of the fact that they’re in a dead zone of their own making.
From a fan perspective, who cares how much money they are taking in. They sold their souls and have little left beyond rationalizations and the like for folks like you to fall back on.
Kinda sad, but now they get to reside at the bottom of conferences behind a small handful of power teams that rule them and cock back on occasion and remember the good, ol days.