Big Ten Roundup (Aug. 5): Oregon and Washington are Joining the Big Ten
Just one year after USC and UCLA were announced to be moving to the Big Ten, Oregon and Washington have joined them.
The writing had been on the wall this past week ever since Deion Sanders and Colorado announced they were moving to the Big 12 in 2024, opening the floodgates for the death of the Pac-12.
First reported by The Action Network's Brett McMurphy, Oregon and Washington were confirmed to be joining the Big Ten in 2024 along with former Pac-12 pals USC and UCLA.
Here's everything you need to know in today's Big Ten Roundup:
Oregon, Washington Joining the Big Ten
Remember when we all thought the Leaders and Legends division was the dumbest thing the Big Ten had ever done?
Oh, to long for those days.
It's official now. Oregon and Washington are Big Ten teams. Geography has literally zero implication moving forward on how conferences realign. The Pac-12 as we knew it is dead. Eat at Arby's.
After initial hope Friday morning that the Pac-12 could pull itself off the mat and get a grant of rights signed, the conference dropped the ball just minutes before the meeting. According to Ross Dellenger of Yahoo Sports, the Pac-12 presidents' meeting was sunk right before it started, when Oregon's representatives raised concerns on the conference's new media deal with Apple.
Oregon and Washington were the two last bits of duct tape holding the sinking Pac-12 ship together. Still being the only two schools from the Pac-12 to have ever represented the conference in the College Football Playoff, the Arizona's, Arizona State's and Utah's of the world were all waiting to see what would become of Oregon and Washington before they hopped on their own life raft out of the conference.
Just a few hours after the Ducks and the Huskies formally joined the Big Ten, Arizona, Arizona State and Utah all announced their move to the Big 12, which is expected to be approved in the next 24 hours.
The only teams currently remaining in the Pacific conference past 2024 are Cal, Stanford, Oregon State and Washington State. Cal and Stanford have also been rumored as potential Big Ten teams, though it seems from the outside like the conference might wait a year or two before expanding to 20 teams.
As for Oregon State and Washington State, there doesn't currently appear to be a route forward where they remain in a power conference. Unlike the Big 12 more than a decade ago when it lost Missouri, Texas A&M, Colorado and Nebraska, the Pac-12 doesn't have teams nearby it can easily promote. The Mountain West makes adding a team from its conference difficult due to its hefty $34 million exit fee, and no team from the other four major conferences would have any desire to join the Pac-12 at this moment.
Sadly the signs point to those two state schools dropping down to the Mountain West in a year or two and fading into football obscurity.
There's no "end" in sight for all of this college football realignment madness. The conferences and schools simply make far too much money to not try and reach for more whenever possible. They've already crossed the line and decided that location and conference tradition don't really matter anymore.
For now, these are what your Power 4 conferences look like in 2024:
Big Ten — Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan State, Penn State, Indiana, Maryland, Rutgers, Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska, Purdue, Minnesota, Northwestern, Illinois, USC, UCLA, Oregon, Washington
SEC — Alabama, LSU, Auburn, Arkansas, Texas A&M, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Kentucky, South Carolina, Missouri, Vanderbilt, Texas, Oklahoma
ACC — Florida State, Clemson, Wake Forest, N.C. State, Louisville, Syracuse, Boston College, North Carolina, Miami, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Pittsburgh, Georgia Tech, Duke
Big 12 — Oklahoma State, Baylor, TCU, Texas Tech, West Virginia, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Cincinnati, Houston, BYU, UCF, Colorado, Arizona, Arizona State, Utah
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