Pac-12: Welcome to the long goodbye
It’s not happening for two more years, he said. Besides, the travel won’t be that big a deal, he said. And the only thing worth worrying about is his own team, he said.
But then….“Lincoln, Nebraska is 1,149 miles from our campus,” Chip Kelly said. “Seattle is 1,135 miles from our campus.”
Someone asked the UCLA coach about the trek to Rutgers, in central New Jersey.
“It’s 2,765 miles,” he said. “Four and a half hour flight. Coming back will be a little longer.
“I haven’t looked at it very much.”
Pac-12 Football Media Day on Friday was physically conducted in Los Angeles, but hearts and minds were dwelling on the Olentangy River and the Nittany Valley. A month ago UCLA and USC announced they were leaving their 100-year home to take up with the Big 10.
This sets up a long, rancorous goodbye. The two L.A. schools were the connective tissue of the conference. They were always the teams to beat, even lately, when they’ve been beaten often. It would be like removing Oahu from the Hawaiian Islands. Oregon has little in common with Arizona; Stanford isn’t exactly simpatico with Colorado.
George Kliavkoff, entering his second year as commissioner, said he’s confident that the Stranded Ten will stay together. That’s a nice sentiment, but it is hard to imagine the Big 10 wouldn’t be interested in Oregon, Washington and Stanford.
Kliavkoff thought the toughest part of his job would be assembling the financial rubble that was left to him by ex-commissioner Larry “The Legend” Scott. Instead, his castle is being stormed by the Big Ten and the Big 12, and he finds himself denying that he’s interested in a merger with the Mountain West, which wouldn’t be prestigious but might improve the level of football.
Kliavkoff is having enough trouble insisting that the Stranded 10 members remain nice to the two infidels. He has absolutely no patience with the leering looks from the Big 12, which just added BYU, Central Florida, Cincinnati and Houston for the 2023 season.
“I’ve been spending four weeks trying to defend against grenades that have been lobbed from every corner of the Big 12, trying to destabillize our remaining conference,” he said. “With respect to the Big 12 being open for business, I respect that. We haven’t decided if we’re going shopping there.”
USC, of course, is the Maybach of the conference, and it will go wherever it wants. UCLA is different. IIt has a University of California system partner in Cal, and Gov. Gavin Newsom dropped in on a Board of Regents meeting to demand that UCLA “clearly explain” how Big Ten membership will “improve the experience for all its student-athletes,” which, of course, it can’t.
UCLA officials will be grilled by the Regents in October. The party line is that the Bruins enthusiastically joined the Big Ten because now they don’t have to cancel certain sports.
Kliavkoff sang a different tune Friday.’
“I’d say UCLA is in a difficult situation,” he said. “Many people there are very, very unhappy with that decision — student-athletes, their families, the politicians, the fans, the alumni. There’s a lot of really, really upset people. There’s a hearing coming up about that decision. I can’t give you a percentage chance (that UCLA would renege) but if they came back, we’d welcome them back.”
Dan Lanning, the Oregon coach who coordinated Georgia’s national championship defense last year, wondered why this is such a big deal. After all it’s not like the Big 10 made off with the Pac-12’s best program.
“Oregon is a brand that can stand alone,” Lanning said. “It’s amazing how many kids tell me that Oregon has always been their dream school. Only nine teams have played for a national championshp. Oregon has done it twice.”
Hardly anyone else can. Colorado might want to bid for Big Ten status just to rekindle his old, vicious rivalry with Nebraska. Arizona and Arizona State might eventually want to partner with TCU, Texas Tech and Baylor for a framework of a new Southwest Confference.
Oregon is
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