Washington State president hoping to rebuild Pac-12 with Stanford and Cal, possibly expand in future

The fate of two programs depends on what the other two do

The Pac-12 has found themselves down to just four programs, but unfortunately for two of those programs they do not have as much autonomy over their future as the others.

Stanford and Cal in a sense have the "upper-hand" of the remaining four programs being that they actually have a future trending towards being in a Power 4 conference. However, just because things are trending in that direction doesn't mean they are a certainty. The two Bay Area schools need one more vote to gain approval to join the ACC, and while momentum was working in their favor as of Monday when a vote was supposed to occur there was a horrific mass shooting at North Carolina's campus that led to the postponement of the vote out of respect. 

While football and realignment is the least important thing with such a tragedy occurring, Stanford and Cal are now really pressed for time as ESPN's Pete Thamel provided a deadline of Week 1 for this move to happen. It was also reported earlier on Tuesday that the call hasn't been rescheduled, again out of respect, but that there hasn't been a necessary flip. 

Quick (non) update here on ACC - no current rescheduled presidents call out of respect for what happened at UNC. Jim Phillips is going to Dallas for CFP meetings tomorrow. It is my understanding nobody has flipped yet on adding Cal, Stanford and SMU but talks continue.

— Andrea Adelson (@aadelsonESPN) August 29, 2023

The meeting in Dallas is in regards to the expansion and format  of the College Football Playoff which may now be changed. 

With the uncertainty with the ACC, it has possibly given a glimmer of hope to Washington State's president Kirk Schulz who told reporters he is still hoping that the Pac-12 is capable of "keeping the band together" in order to "see what that next step looks like".

The next step in question would likely mean some sort of Pac-12 expansion, which would likely consist of adding teams in the American for 2024, and then grabbing programs from the Mountain West in 2025. While their status as a Power conference would be questionable, there is still technically a route to the playoff as the expectation is that there will be the top six conference champions. 

I broke down the top expansion candidates for the Pac-12, which you can check out here (MWC/AAC).

Stanford and Cal are certainly hoping to not have to worry about Pac-12 expansion again, but their standing with the ACC continues to be in question.