Commanders' Ron Rivera Calls College Football Realignment 'A Tragedy'

College football has been turned on its head in recent years.

Realignment has shaken the sport to its core, and no conference has been affected more than the Pac-12. Washington Commanders head coach Ron Rivera cut his teeth in the Pac-10 when he played for the University of California Golden Bears from 1980 to 1983.

Rivera was a consensus All-American and the Pac-10 defensive player of the year in 1983. He also set the single-season record for tackles for a loss with 26.5 that season. He had 47.5 in his career, the most in Cal football history.

Realignment first affected the Pac-12 in the summer of 2022 when USC and UCLA agreed to leave for the Big 10 conference in 2024. Earlier this summer, Colorado, Utah, Arizona and Arizona State are set to leave for the Big 12 conference after 2023-24, while Oregon and Washington will go to the Big 10 with UCLA and USC.

The universities leaving the Pac-12 is largely due to the West Coast-based conference's inability to secure a media rights deal beyond the 2023-24 athletic year.

“I'm really disappointed in what happened to the Pac-12," Rivera said. "That's one of the oldest conferences in the nation and one of the first ones too," Rivera said. For that matter, there's a tremendous legacy that's been built by a lot of guys. My concern is that West Coast football has lost its prominence in the NCAA."

As things currently stand, Cal, Washington State, Oregon State and Stanford are the only remaining schools in the Pac-12 beyond the 2023-24 year. With schools leaving Pac-12, Rivera is worried about the legacy left behind by players in the conference and its impact on football on the West Coast.

"I'm disappointed in that because of the legacy that's going to really disappear," Rivera said. "That, to me, is a tragedy. Imagine the outrage would be if something like that were ever to happen to an SEC or an ACC or something like that. I mean, these are longstanding traditional conferences that serve a purpose. And when you start taking the primary focus of West Coast football out, I mean that to me that's terrible. It really is.”

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