The Summer Of Conference Realignment Continues

It appears that Colorado’s departure from the Pac-12 started a major domino effect this summer, with more news coming on the conference realignment front on Friday.

According to several reports, Arizona State and Utah of the Pac-12 will leave their former conference in favor of the Big 12 before the 2024 football season. This comes after Arizona already received approval to enter the Big 12 earlier this week, and Oregon and Washington have taken big steps towards finalizing their entrance into the Big Ten over the past few days. 

All of this started this summer when Colorado announced its departure from the Pac-12 for the Big 12, but the Pac-12 exodus was led by two of the faces of the conference, USC and UCLA, many months ago. We have seen some recent realignment in the SEC with the additions of Texas and Oklahoma, but we have yet to see anything close to the scale we have seen from these schools leaving the Pac-12 over the past few days. It has happened rapidly; frankly, the conference is in free fall. The recent news raises more and more questions, which will surely take time to answer.

The truest of college football fans will immediately wonder what will happen to The Granddaddy of Them All. The Rose Bowl has for so long been a staple on New Year’s Day, in a matchup between the best from the Big Ten and the Pac-12. Things have changed a little bit since the introduction of the BCS and, later, the College Football Playoff, but for many years this traditional matchup and date still existed. Playoff expansion was inevitably going to change things, but now it looks like there may not even be a Pac-12. 

Oregon QB Bo Nix during the spring game in Eugene, Oregon, on April 29, 2023. (Photo by Ben Lonergan of the The Register-Guard)

With just four schools remaining, who knows how quickly they could vanish? The conference could look to add schools from nearby, such as in the Mountain West, but the Big Ten and the Rose Bowl would likely be hesitant to keep the Pac-12 in this game when it is not the same conference it used to be. People have thrown out the idea of the Big Ten championship game being played in Pasadena, which would be controversial but is a decent option.

People wondered how big these conferences were willing to get, and the answer may be 20 teams. The Big Ten will be up to 18 as of now. The Big 12 will be up to 16, which is what the SEC sits at. The SEC has yet to be a major player this summer, though they made the Red River moves last year. We will see what happens with Florida State and Clemson on that front, though. Speaking of across the country, the entire narrative about this situation revolves around football, which is fair, since it is the main player. Even still, how will basketball operate with conference opponents from coast to coast? What about smaller, lower-budget sports? There are a lot of questions yet to be answered in what has been a wild summer and an even crazier past few days.

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