The Coast is unclear
There is one bit of good news for the Unpacked-10 Conference, after the seismic announcement on Thursday.
At least it kept Oregon.
For a while.
When people say the loss of USC and UCLA will be an inoperable blow to the Pac-12’s condition, they aren’t talking about the football part. UCLA hasn’t won a Pac-10 or 12 championship since 1988. USC has won only one since 2008, while the Ducks have won six.
Now the Bruins and Trojans will join the Big Ten in 2024, which means they can lose big games at noon (EST) on Saturday instead of 8 p.m. (PST). The pain of a Buckeye helmet rattling the already chattering teeth of a USC receiver in November will be eased by massive paydays, straight into the Venmo accounts of kids who will put themselves up for auction, once more, in the next off-season.
Lincoln Riley was put off by Oklahoma’s quick burst from the Big 12 to the SEC, and that was one reason he became intrigued by USC. Did athletic director Mike Bohn let him know this was coming? No matter how many starry players Riley can pirate from other programs, the Trojans will find life much tougher, at least competitively. The Big Ten is much closer to the almighty SEC, when it comes to physicality and speed, than to a Pac-12 that USC has notably failed to dominate.
Basketball life will be more difficult, too. We don’t know the scheduling formats yet, but it won’t be easy or sensible to play on Wednesday night in East Lansing and jet back to Westwood for Thursday morning classes. This is why this is such a coup for the Big Ten teams, who can bask in the advantages of trips to the Southland and still play most of their games at home.
Football attendance will benefit. Michigan claims 12,000 alumni in southern California. Maize and Blue fans took over Staples Center in 2019 when Michigan won an NCAA regional. Ohio State and Penn State folks travel similarly. As for Wisconsin, many of their fans came out for the 1998 Rose Bowl and never returned.
If one wants to sound quaintly concerned about the plight of the student-athlete, ask the volleyball coaches how they feel about non-revenue trips to Rutgers and Minnesota. You wouldn’t think the Pac-12 baseball coaches are thrilled over this, either. But maybe they can form their own associations, maybe include San Diego State and Fresno State and others who must be eyeing their own Pac-12 chances. What USC and UCLA did on Thursday rewrites all expectations.
Economically the Pac-12 suffers a major wound to the mid-section. But if the Big Ten is really trying to set up a national summit with the SEC, why not go for Oregon, Utah, Arizona State, Arizona and Washington, too? Let the rest of them rummage around the margins with the Mountain West schools and Brigham Young.
This is what the “reformers” of college sports wanted. Pay the players what they deserve in terms of Name, Image and Likeness, and let them transfer with impunity. So now you have widespread tampering, provable or not, and “stashing” of developmental players on the Mid-American Conference and Conference USA levels. “It’s NFL free agency without rules,” said Bill O’Brien, former NFL coach and now Alabama’s offensive coordinator.
Next thing you know, scholarship limits and coaching staff limits will be under siege. The step beyond that might be the complete abandonment of book learning, the death of the final pretense.. Instead of student-athletes, we’ll have Hessians who will have no connection to their schools beyond the logo.
You could even see the powerhouses building their own football complexes, in resort locations hundreds of miles from campus, and then coming to campus on Saturday. What recourse would the NCAA have?
It doesn’t seem so outlandish when you realize that Army and the University of Chicago ruled college football once upon a time, and that a coach like Woody Hayes lived in the same modest frame house in Columbus and, for much of his life, didn’t have a credit card.
Thursday proved what everyone knew on Wednesday, that college sports is blazing an inflationary vapor trail with no regard for anything but the money. When USC and UCLA realize they are at least as far away from a College Football Playoff slot as they were before, we’ll see if money can buy happiness, or at the very least an overcoat.
