DeBoer Puts On Brave Face As Pac-12 Appears to Crumble Around UW

Big Ten acknowledges it is open to further expansion with West Coast league in vulnerable state.
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The University of Washington football team was back in familiar territory on Wednesday with the opening of fall camp, comfortable in a second season with Kalen DeBoer and staff, but things were far from normal.

While the Huskies began preparations for what could be a highly successful season, the Pac-12 seemed to be crumbling all around them.

Following the disclosure of a possible Apple streaming deal for the league that was met with mostly negative reviews, Yahoo.com and other news outlets reported how the Big Ten was exploring potential further expansion — specifically adding Oregon and the UW if their conference collapses — and the long-standing Midwest league confirmed the basic premise without detail.

Asked about all of the uncertainly surrounding him and his team following his first fall practice, Husky coach Kalen DeBoer said, "Obviously it impacts me, impacts my program. Obviously there's nothing I can do at this point, so I stay in my lane. There's not a lot of information I'm given at the coach level, not a lot of information other than being informed on what happens day to day."

Yet the second-year coach, coming off an impressive 11-2 season in his Montlake debut with the prospects of doing even better this fall, next tried to put a positive spin on an uncomfortable situation.

"I'm always kind of rest assured that in the U-Dub, we have a great place here, that people will want us if things fall through in the Pac-12," DeBoer said;

With stuff moving fast behind closed doors, the Big Ten revealed in a public statement on Wednesday that it had begun "exploratory discussions" about potential additions.

With the Pac-12's USC and UCLA coming on board next season, the Big Ten will have a 16-team conference. However, the stronger Power 5 leagues such as the SEC and Big Ten, and even the Big 12, appear to have no limits in how many teams they could operate with and might pursue as college football begins to lean to super conferences.

On Tuesday, several outlets reported how Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff had presented primarily an Apple streaming deal to the remaining nine schools and it was met with largely resistant reactions because of issues with exposure and guaranteed money.


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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.