College football realignment: Pac-12 AD takes a shot at USC, UCLA over Big Ten move
USC and UCLA kicked off the latest phase of college football realignment with their bombshell decision to join the Big Ten in 2024.
That move leaves the future of the Pac-12 anything but certain, with its two most high-profile brands walking away and taking their prestige and following with them.
But when you listen to Colorado athletic director Rick George talk about it, he makes it sound like the Pac-12 didn't lose much of anything at all, taking a shot at USC and UCLA and their lack of recent championship success.
“So everybody is clear, we didn’t lose any team that has appeared in a CFP playoff game,” George said via The Denver Post.
That is certainly a more optimistic way of looking at things.
And, while that statement is technically true, you could also say that it leaves out some critical pieces of information.
Like, for instance, that the Pac-12 isn't exactly blowing away the College Football Playoff selection committee anywhere across its membership.
CFP selectors routinely kept Pac-12 teams down in their rankings, sending a clear message that the committee didn't regard the conference as producing a schedule worthy of a playoff team.
USC and UCLA made the bombshell move of college football realignment
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Moreover, the Pac-12 has only earned two College Football Playoff appearances: Oregon in 2014, losing to Ohio State in the national championship, and Washington in 2016, losing by three touchdowns to Alabama in a semifinal.
Utah leads the Pac-12 with 35 appearances in the official College Football Playoff rankings, tied with Oklahoma State for the seventh-most nationally, boasting an average ranking of 16.43 and a school-best No. 5 spot.
Oregon is second in the league and 14th nationally with 26 appearances, climbed as high as No. 2, and has an average ranking of 9.62 all-time.
USC is tied with Oregon at 26 appearances in the CFP poll, with an average ranking of No. 17, and has reached as high as No. 8.
USC was the last Pac-12 team to win the national championship in football, in 2004 against Oklahoma under the old BCS system.
Another crucial fact that George's comments leave out is that the Big Ten likely didn't invite USC and UCLA to the conference for athletic prestige alone.
By adding the Los Angeles media market, the second-largest in the nation, to its holdings, the conference now has the bargaining power to bid its upcoming media deal to an amount that reports suggest could be worth $1 billion per year.
Nothing the Pac-12 could have done would have put that league anywhere in the same galaxy in terms of potential revenue.
And going by the current economic climate, there's not much it can do.
That, and that alone, is why USC and UCLA moved to the Big Ten, whether or not the schools have appeared in a College Football Playoff game.
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