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“PAC 12-FOOTBALL…NOW WHAT I EXPECTED”
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The turmoil in College Football..will just not end.
Overwhelmed by the chaos of the Transfer Portal and the money-tarnished NIL war.
Beaten down by Lawsuits, injunctions, players asking for additional years.
Turned off by agents, players going back on their word, breaking contracts.
Now this.
Welcome to the new Pac 12-Conference, releasing its College Football schedule and format.
It has been alot of hard work, dodging lawsuits, ill-will, lost loyalties, and tattered relationships, we get all things about the 2026-football season that kicks off in late August.
Yes an 8-team league, led by the troubled Oregon State-Washington State programs, both under financed with weak products on the field. The days of Mike Riley-Dennis Erickson and Tommy Prothro in Corvallis are a distant memory. So is the same in Pullman where once upon a time NFL-QBs Jack ‘The Throwing Samoan’ Thompson, Mark Rypien, Drew Bledsoe, and Ryan Leaf made things happen.
Left behind after USC-UCLA-Oregon-Washington and everyone else departed, the Beavers and Cougars decided to try and wrap the Pac 12-flag around themselves and the league invited others to join them.
So now membership includes the Aztecs and legendary Mountain West flag-carrier Boise State, plus the other refugees, Colorado State-Utah State-Fresno State-Utah State and add on Texas State all make up the 8-football teams. Come next winter, Gonzaga will join in basketball.
But at first glance this does not overwhelm people. No way this new Pac 12 resembles the historic conference that had the Trojans-Bruins-Ducks-Huskies and others on Saturdays.
Now the bizarre part of the schedule release. Because there is no one to go schedule for a non conference game, the new Pac 12 will have a ‘flex game’ as the final game of the Aztecs schedule. In simple English for you, it means SDSU will play one of its conference partners a 2nd time in the same season.
You really think Southern Cal-UCLA or Oregon-Washington a second time late in the season would not tarnish a rivalry weekend? How trashy is that.
You’d rather have that second in season matchup, than trying to play Stanford-Cal-Southern Cal-Arizona-ASU-BYU-Utah as a non conference game?
Off the field we now find the new look Pac 12-TV deals, won’t bring in the kind of revenue people wanted, even with 3-different network partners. Reports say the rights deals will give each new team (6M) a year. Yes a bump up from the (3M) they all used to get in the MWC (3M), but it’s far less from the (10M) USC-UCLA got in the final years before they left.
Of course now, the Trojans and Bruins just got checks for (62M) in Big 10-fees. Egad the new guys in the new Pac 12 are so far. behind the curve.
Oh by the way, last week’s announcement that the new Pac 12 will be part of the Group of 6-puzzle, meaning they are not equal to a Power 4-Conference that locks in playoff spots and more paydays.
Sorry to say, San Diego State is no different than Western Michigan, James Madison or Coastal Carolina even if it has its mail delivered to the Pac 12 this season. Some national impact eh?
And as a side note, the Mountain West is in the middle of this brutal lawsuit with the new Pac 12-demanding not just the exit fees and the NCAA March Madness units they got, but poaching fees from the Pac 12 to the tune of 110M.
And the MWC has taken shrapnel too. That conference stretches from Hawaii to North Dakota, Northern Illinois to New Mexico and everywhere in between. Poor Air Force-Wyoming-sure seems to get worse for them. And the emotional damage, UNLV left behind in all this. And the MWC new media payday nets them just (3.5M) a school, just a few dollars more than they got when Boise and SDSU state brought recognition to the league.
Dark time right now in the two conferences.
I feel awful for John David Wicker and all those who worked so hard to secure a future for SDSU athletics. They did not get a just return for all they put into the project.
Poor Sean Lewis-does not really get the chance to ‘Finish the Climb’ in football either, playing the same old-same old each fall. What’s changed… nothing, except losing all your star players when someone from the outside comes and takes them in a payday.
College football is broken. Greed is good I guess. Seems the only purity in the game might be in an Ivy League-Saturday afternoon a-la Harvard-vs-Yale.
Tell me if I am wrong, the new Pac 12 resembles MWC 2.0. Nothing to get excited about regardless which banner you stand under.
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