The new Pac 12 lineup is looking for two more schools in order to be NCAA eligible. photo courtesy of Pac 12
An in-depth breakdown of the transformations inside the Pac-12 conference.
Amidst all of the conference chaos throughout the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) the last couple of years, a conference that has been seemingly abandoned and forgotten is the Pacific 12 conference (Pac-12). Producing two of college football’s juggernauts in the 2023 season, the University of Oregon and the University of Washington, the Pac-12 was once a conference filled with teams striving for athletic greatness. After movement all over the nation, however, the conference has been reduced to just two teams. For now, at least.
Last year, the Pac-12’s accomplishments included a football championship appearance from Washington University, as well as four NCAA top 25 ranked teams: the University of Arizona (U of A), Washington University (UW), University of Oregon (OU) and Southern California University (USC). Before the start of the 2023 football season, players and fans already knew the fate of the Pac-12 was coming to an end. With every team expected to find a new home in 2024 except for Oregon State University (OSU) and Washington State University (WSU), who were set to stay. After the kickoff of the 2024 season, the nickname “Pac 2” had caught the attention of many fans. With only a two-team conference and just one line conference game, winning the Pac-12 championship will be somewhat of a disappointment for longtime OSU and WSU fans.
At the beginning of the season, the future was unknown for the fate of the two teams in the depleting conference until a resurgence of rumors emerged. A late night announcement from the Pac-12 on Wednesday, September 11th 2024, surprised the college sports community when it told fans that there will be five new additions to the Pac 12 in 2026. The new additions include Colorado State University (CSU), Boise State University (BSU), Fresno State University (FSU), Utah State University (USU), and San Diego State University (SDSU) will all move from the Mountain West Conference and join WSU and OSU in the Pac-12.
The Pac-12 has been scrambling to find new members ever since the implosion of the old 12-team conference. The NCAA requires every conference to have at least eight members, but because of the quick departure of ten of the Pac-12’s teams, the NCAA allowed the conference to gain their composure with a two year grace period. In an article for ESPN, Kyle Bonagura explains the NCAA exception for the Pac-12, saying, “The NCAA requires conferences to have at least eight members, and after the Pac-12 fell apart, it was afforded a two-year grace period to exist below the minimum. That timeline informed how quickly the conference had to move in order to continue to exist.”
The conference has two years to introduce two more members or it will be the end of the Pac-12 as fans know it. Fortunately for them, the introduction of Mountain West teams have inspired other teams to take a leap forward and try and promote themselves into the Pac-12. Some experts have introduced the idea of bringing back three struggling schools, who would fill the required eight teams and keep the conference alive. The proposed move would allow Stanford University and the University of California Berkeley (UCB) to move back home from the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), as well as possibly re-welcoming the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) from the BIG 10 Conference.
The Pac-12 has some decisions to make, and there is not one right decision. The conference needs to hit the eight team limit and they only have one year to make that happen. The NCAA will be chock full of news and updates this next year, with constant movement and transition.
