It’s official. Texas and Oklahoma have informed the Big-12 they will NOT be renewing their media rights contract in the 2025 season. By all indications, this means the SEC will add two more college football blue bloods to their already stacked arsenal. This mammoth decision leaves many questions unanswered not only for college football, but for the Big-12 and its remaining teams. Another conference that should be worried is the Pac-12.
How will “The Conference of Champions” remain relevant when this latest realignment could regionalize the spot for good?
One suggestion has come from Andy Staples with The Athletic. Instead of waiting for cues from other conferences, he envisions the Pac-12 and Big-10 joining forces to counteract this latest move.
The Big Ten and Pac-12 have been partners in the Rose Bowl for decades, but now is time for drastic action. The best move for the Big Ten — and for the idea of college football as a national proposition — is for the Big Ten to take half the Pac-12.I realize that I’m the one who wrote last year that the Big 12 needed to take half the Pac-12. One of my reasons was that it would allow the Big 12 to win in an eat-or-be-eaten situation. That might have created a league attractive enough to convince Oklahoma and Texas to stay.
Joining forces with the Big-10 would ultimately mean the Pac-12 would cease to exist. The conference would then need to acquire the remaining schools leftover in the Big-12 to create a viable conference. No doubt, this would also cause the ACC to amass other schools and ultimately create four dominant conferences in the college football landscape.
It’s a terrifying idea if you love the current structure of the Pac-12. But considering what’s happened lately, it could be a reality.