Pac-12 Has Real Chance To Be Leader of the Pac...And More

In the high-speed lane that has become Power 5 conference football, the Pac-12 has rarely been an innovator.

Nor, other than often working in tandem with the Big Ten, has the Pac-12 been a vocal or active part of the group.

If the SEC's motto (concerning football) is "that it just means'' more'', the Pac-12's motto should be "we're just different.''

The other conferences have set up multi-million dollar profit machines designed as conference television networks, available throughout the country.

The Pac-12 network has been in almost everyone's opinion, a major failure in both exposure and revenue.

Oh, the Pac-12 takes pride in putting together complete athletic programs in all sports, but most of the national success in the conference has been achieved by the non or low revenue Olympic sports.

In terms of college football, the real cash cow, the Pac-12's influence nationally has been minimal.

On Thursday that may have changed dramatically.

The Pac-12 announced that, in working with Quidel, a California diagnostic health care firm based in San Diego, it would implement a COVID-19 test in which the results could be learned in 15 minutes.

“This enables us to know every day, before every athletic practice or game, that everyone participating tested negative for COVID-19,” Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott said. “This access to daily, rapid-result testing, simply put, is a game-changer.''

Like the Big Ten, Pac-12 football has been shut down since August 11, but for a much different reason than the Big Ten which continues to be clueless in controlling a message it wants to send to the public.

Like the Big Ten, the Pac-12 medical experts expressed great concern in controlling COVID-19 enough to ensure safety for the athletes and other personnel involved.

But UNLIKE the Big Ten, which continues to prepare for a football season which still may begin this calendar year, the Pac-12 had little choice but to shut down.

State government procedures shut down half of the schools in the Pac-12 – four from California (UCLA, USC, Stanford, Cal-Berkeley) and two from Oregon (Oregon and Oregon State).

Those campuses basically remain shut, so even if the football coaches WANTED to practice, they could not realistically do it.

Even if they started practice tomorrow, it would be the middle to late October before Pac-12 football could begin any kind of a season.

Scott hinted that it could be sometime ""before the end of the year.''

The "game-changing'' aspect, which will make the Pac-12 both an innovator and leader, kicks in when the other Power 5 conferences, get access to this new testing procedure.

But there are questions and raised eyebrows from other conferences who have also been working on finding fast and safe testing methods.

""This has been out there for awhile,'' said one conference official. |"In the natural evolution of things, we'll all get to the point where we can have tests that are inclusive.

It's not going to happen overnight and it might be more helpful for basketball than for football for this season.''

Still it's a legitimate step; forward made by the Pac-12.

"If it's legitimate and it’s cost effective, this could make all the difference in the world,'' said an administrator from a Group of 5 school still playing football.

As there should be, there are as many questions as there are answers on how to make this new information work in helping college football not only start, but finish a fall season.

For the Pac-12 and the Big Ten, if it does reverse its no football stance, the options are an October or November start with still another schedule being put together in piece meal fashion.

Realistically, the best the Pac-12 and the Big Ten can hope for in the next few months is the start of a season which will be put together more in winter than in fall,

Such a move would leave them outside the loop of the CFB playoffs for this season.

It is hardly an ideal solution, but it is a step forward and if you are talking about a way to generate income for programs which are being overwhelmed with negative cash flow numbers, it will be one that will quickly be embraced.

And, even if the Pac-12 is not part of the main production, it can take some satisfaction that for the first time in history, the conference will have played a leading role in a major event in college football history.