(06-11-2021 07:08 AM)The Cutter of Bish Wrote:  

(06-10-2021 06:24 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  Forgive my poor memory, but what did the PAC presidents not vote for?

You referenced it, but, the second pass on Oklahoma and Oklahoma State only as members of the conference after the resulting crumbling of PAC-16 and the Colorado and Utah grabs to twelve was one. How the scheduling alliance with the Big Ten fell apart at the end was the other. Both were avenues to more revenue and options the conference would later (currently) complain about. Both would have addressed that desire years earlier. Why they both fell apart, honestly, has always read or looked like someone missing the forest for the trees. OU and, really, OSU were practically as good as in if Texas was on board. So, in principle, their membership was not an issue. But, take Texas away, and now they aren’t candidates and the conference doesn’t need to grow? How did that age?

The scheduling alliance (I tend to call it B1G-PAC out of brevity, but that’s not what it was called) was apparently big enough a deal that when the PAC walked on it, really over cold feet by some of the schools over whatever concerns (timing, commitments to other series), the Big Ten expanded to 14. That conference even said it wouldn’t have necessarily expanded if the alliance had gone through.

So, we are now at where we are. Correct that things looked good in principle, but then scrapped. How is that on Larry if he didn’t make the vote?

Larry Scott made the mistake of a verbal agreement with the Big Ten on a scheduling alliance without the approval of the key schools in the Pac-12, specifically the California schools. The idea was to schedule 12 non-conference games annually in football between the two conferences. One problem was that the Pac-12 played a nine game conference schedule and the Big Ten an eight game conference schedule. Another was Notre Dame, with their annual games against USC and Stanford. The California schools, with their California recruiting pipeline, had no problems scheduling games in non-conference against power conference schools and had plenty of future games already scheduled. What was this additional Big Ten game going to do for them?

If Larry had bothered to check with all of the Pac-12 schools, he would have realized this was never going to happen. I remember at a 2011 UCLA football breakfast that Bruin head coach Rick Neuheisel was complaining about the schedule from the previous season. Besides the nine game conference schedule, they played at Texas, at Kansas State, and their one patsy game was a home game against Houston, ranked No. 23 at the time. Replacing Houston with Wisconsin was not going to be appealing.

Just like adding OU and OSU had no appeal to the Pac-12 leadership, adding another power conference opponent on an already tough football schedule was not going to happen. If Larry was communicating with the conference leadership, he would never have made the commitment in the first place.