The Present and Future of the Pac-12

“What’s in a name?” William Shakespeare asked rhetorically in “Romeo and Juliet.”

Absolutely nothing if you’re an intercollegiate athletic conference. Or so it seems.

Thanks to the recent deck reshuffling among universities, the Big Ten features 18 schools. The Big 12 has 16. The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) includes two teams on the Pacific Coast. The Southeastern Conference encompasses three schools in the Southwest.

And now, the Pac-12 has been reduced to two teams, yet it retains its misleading moniker.

As of July 1, the Pac-12 consists of just Oregon State University and Washington State University. At least they’re both geographically appropriate.

After a storied history spanning more than a century, the “Conference of Champions” now exists in name only.

Could the Pac-12 reconstitute with new teams? What does the future hold for this famed conference?

Over the past couple of years, Power 5 schools have been swapping conferences in search of bigger and better media deals.

Yet the athletic musical chairs hasn’t been a zero-sum game. Several conferences gained members, while one, the Pac-12, lost most of its schools.

The universities of Oregon and Washington, along with the University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA) and the University of Southern California (USC) bolted for the Big Ten, while Arizona State University and the universities of Arizona, Colorado, and Utah joined the Big 12.

Meanwhile, Stanford University and the University of California-Berkeley left for the ACC.

Misnomers aside, such geographic incongruity promises to take a physical and mental toll on student-athletes forced into coast-to-coast travel.

With all the West Coast schools jettisoning the Pac-12 for more lucrative pastures, only Oregon State and Washington State were left standing once the music stopped.

The good news for those two remaining schools is that they now control the financial fortunes of the Pac-12 following a settlement in a suit against the other 10 members.

The bad news, of course, is that the future fortunes of the conference are, at best, in flux.

The thought of Washington State and Oregon State battling it out for Pac-12 football supremacy by playing each other every week seems intriguing enough. But, alas, it won’t be happening.

Instead, the two schools will compete against opponents in the Mountain West Conference, which features foes such as Boise State University and the University of Nevada.

Oregon State will play its rival, the University of Oregon, through 2025 for bragging rights and the coveted Platypus Trophy, while Washington State will battle the University of Washington in the Apple Cup, maintaining the two long-standing football traditions for now.

Outside of football, most other Washington State and Oregon State teams will compete in the West Coast Conference for two years starting this fall. Oregon State’s baseball team will remain independent for 2025.

So there will be no Pac-12 champions for the foreseeable future because there really isn’t a Pac-12. In fact, the conference has been demoted out of the Power 5, leaving only the Power 4.

Technically speaking, the NCAA now considers the Pac-12 a “nonautonomous FBS conference,” similar to the designation afforded Group of 5 conferences such as the Sun Belt and Conference USA.

“Autonomous” conferences in the Power 4 have the authority to create their own rules to benefit student-athletes.

What’s more, per NCAA rules, conferences must have at least eight members to remain viable and eligible for an automatic berth in the 12-team FBS playoff. Conferences falling short of that threshold are allowed a two-year grace period to reconstitute their membership.

That could happen within the Pac-12. According to their agreement, the Pac-12 and Mountain West will explore a merger within the next couple of years, perhaps forming a new iteration of the Pac-12 and preserving the name.

For now, Oregon State and Washington State remain bowl-eligible.

At the same time, both schools continue to pursue opportunities to join a Power 4 conference, where the money and national exposure are much greater. The two schools can no longer rely on the Pac-12 Network for television broadcasts since it shuttered operations as of July 1.

Meanwhile, the Pac-12 soldiers on with its future in doubt. We could see a newly formed conference with the likes of the University of New Mexico and Fresno State University instead of traditional powerhouses such as UCLA, USC, and Stanford, which, to purists, is akin to putting a Ferrari badge on a Dodge Dart.

Suffice it to say the Pac-12, the Conference of Champions and home to the Rose Bowl and athletic dynasties, will remain forever lost to the annals of history.