What does the future hold for Pac-12 football?
Art by Max Kehoe
This summer, UCLA and USC announced they would move from the Pacific-12 conference, or the Pac-12, to the Big Ten conference in 2024. Media deals were heavily involved because the conference struggled to get a TV deal, unlike the Big Ten conference that recently agreed on a seven-year TV deal with FOX, CBS and NBC for seven billion dollars. This move was the start of the collapse of the Pac-12 conference, which leaves many college football fans upset because many would say the conference is the strongest it has been in years.
“Man, you know, as a kid who grew up watching Pac-12 ball, it sort of hits home a little bit,” Jayden Montanez (’24) said. “You know… I would say that this was their most competitive year that I’ve ever watched, just a bunch of teams all competing, so it was a nice farewell.”
Quickly after the two schools announced their future exit in 2024, eight of the ten remaining schools announced that they would also be joining a different conference next year. The University of Washington and the University of Oregon, the top two schools in the Pac-12 this season, are following UCLA and USC by joining the Big Ten conference in 2024. The Big 12 conference will also add four Pac-12 schools in 2024 with the Utah Utes, the Colorado Buffaloes, the Arizona Wildcats, and the Arizona State Sun Devils. Stanford and Cal Berkeley officially left the Pac-12 with their move to the Atlantic Coast Conference (the ACC), so Oregon State and Washington State are currently the only schools left in the Pac-12, or what others now call the “Pac-2”.
Although both Oregon State and Washington State will participate in a two-team conference, they have reached a scheduling agreement with the Mountain West Conference for the 2024 season. The only concern for those schools is that the Mountain West is a bottom five conference instead of a power five conference. The bottom five are the five lower-level conferences, as opposed to the power five, which are the top five conferences. Oregon State and Washington State will thus compete at a lower level than they are used to.
For the first and last time in conference history, the PAC-12 football championship included a matchup between two schools ranked in the top five by the College Football Playoff Committee: Washington and Oregon. Both teams were not only playing for the final Pac-12 championship, but were also playing for a spot in the College Football Playoffs. Washington escaped the game with a win after Oregon nearly pulled off a comeback after trailing the Huskies by 17 points.
“Washington and Oregon is a growing rivalry in the Pacific Northwest, and with the move to the Big Ten, I think it’s the start of a heated battle between the two schools,” Theo Dowling (’24) said.
With this win, Washington clinched a spot in the playoffs as the number two seed, where they will match up against the University of Texas. UT is the number four seed in the Sugar Bowl to hopefully end their conference's history on a high note.
With that being said, here is how I think each school in the Pac-12 will perform next year with the conference changes:
UCLA, coming off a 7-5 record this year, has a very talented defense along with a promising quarterback in Ethan Garbers. Next year Head Coach Chip Kelly must prove that he can remain the head coach of UCLA after not reaching their expectations this past season. Also, they recently lost their defensive coordinator D’Anton Lynn, which is a huge loss due to his improvement in their defense in one year. The Bruins have a lot to prove in a defensive Big Ten conference that can hurt them due to their struggling offense last year.
USC, also coming off a 7-5 record this year, did not reach their expectations. The Trojans have made significant changes in their staff, with the firing of former defensive coordinator Alex Grinch and bringing in former UCLA defensive coordinator D’Anton Lynn. They also brought in North Dakota State Head Coach Matt Entz to help out with their struggling defense. USC will be losing star quarterback Caleb Williams and their star receivers Brenden Rice and Tahj Washington, which is a huge loss due to how successful their offense has been these past two years with them. Next year, their defense will be the main question of the team since Head Coach Lincoln Riley has a history of having one of the top offensive teams during his 7-year coaching career.
The Washington Huskies, the reigning Pac-12 champions, are coming off their best season yet and are expected to win the national championship this year. Next year they will lose their star quarterback Micheal Penix Jr. and their star receiver Rome Odunze, with both of them being a huge part of the success of their offense this year. It will be hard to replace them when they move to the Big Ten.
Although they lost the Pac-12 Championship, the Oregon Ducks' future is looking bright under second-year Head Coach Dan Lanning. Although they will be losing their quarterback Bo Nix, the Ducks just picked up a commitment from former Oklahoma Sooners quarterback Dillon Gabriel, who led the Sooners to a 10-2 record and is a proven quarterback in college football. In his first two seasons as a head coach, Dan Lanning changed the culture of the team and his resume has made it clear that the Ducks will continue to dominate in the future.
The Utah Utes, who won the Pac-12 championship last year, faced many obstacles throughout the season with injuries. They lost their starting quarterback Cam Rising when he tore his ACL in the Rose Bowl game against Penn State in January. The Utes will be a team to look out for once Rising returns from his injury next season, especially with Head Coach Kyle Whittingham who proved this past year that he can turn nothing into something by coaching the Utes to an 8-4 record.
This year, the Arizona Wildcats looked like one of the most underrated and improved teams in college football. They went 9-3, with those losses being against Mississippi State, USC, and Washington. What makes their record look even more impressive is that all of those losses were by no more than seven points. With redshirt freshman Noah Fifita and sophomore receiver Tetairoa McMillan returning next year, the Wildcats are going to be a fun team to watch with their explosive offense.
The Oregon State Beavers had another solid year going 8-4 but are now in search of a replacement for quarterback DJ Uiagalelei, who recently entered the transfer portal.Even so, they are scheduled to play weaker competition against the Mountain West conference compared to this past season being in the Pac-12. The Beavers would need to go undefeated next season to make a case for the college football playoffs that are being expanded from a 4-team bracket to a 12-team bracket. This gives them hope because the Beavers are at a disadvantage in strength of schedule and the teams that schools play matter, especially with the Florida State Seminoles not making the playoffs after they went undefeated in the ACC and won their conference championship, which was way harder than what Oregon State has the opportunity to do.
Another team that will be at a disadvantage in terms of strength of schedule are the Washington State Cougars, who will also schedule their games with the Mountain West conference. The Cougars had a strong start to the season going 4-0, but struggled the rest of the season and finished with a disappointing 5-7 record. Similar to Oregon State, the Cougars will be losing their quarterback Cam Ward, who recently entered the transfer portal. Ward was a huge part of their offense and it will be hard to replace him considering his impact on the team.
This year all the hype was around the Colorado Buffaloes, who had NFL Hall of Famer Deion Sanders, also known as “Coach Prime,” as head coach. The Buffaloes shocked the world in their season opener beating the TCU Horned Frogs 45-42 in a shootout between both offenses. What made this win so shocking to people was that TCU came into the season as the college football playoff runner-up team after losing to Georgia in a blowout in the National championship last season. Although the Buffaloes had an impressive first win, they finished their season with an overall record of 4-8, which made them ineligible for a bowl game. Although they did not reach the expectations that the media hyped them up with, Colorado could look to bounce back from last season with their two most impactful players returning next season: Travis Hunter, who played both cornerback and wide receiver this season, and quarterback Shedeur Sanders. The biggest concern the team has to fix next season is their offensive line, which allowed over fifty sacks this past season. They most likely will recruit players in the transfer portal to improve that concern.
This season there were many explosive offenses in the Pac-12, and the California Golden Bears were definitely one of them. The team finished with a 6-6 record, which makes them bowl eligible, but the team still needs to improve on defense when they move to the ACC next year. One key loss for Cal going into next season is their offensive coordinator Jake Spavital, who will take the same job at Baylor next season. If Cal can handle these situations well, they could be a solid team in the ACC next season with returning starting quarterback Jayden Ott.
The Arizona State Sun Devils had their first season under first-year Head Coach Kenny Dillingham, and the young team definitely showed potential throughout the season. They finished with a 3-9 record, so they have a lot to prove next season in the Big 12. One position battle to watch for ASU in the spring is the quarterback position, because the Sun Devils just picked up quarterback Sam Leavitt in the transfer portal, who was previously at Michigan State and will now compete with their current starting quarterback Jaden Rashada.
The team that has the most to work on next are the Stanford Cardinals, who had a 3-9 record this past season. With the Cardinals moving to the ACC conference, they will need to recruit players in the transfer portal to improve the depth of their roster for next season. One positive for the Cardinals is wide receiver Elic Ayomanor, who had 1,000 receiving yards this past season and will be coming back for at least one more year until he becomes eligible for the NFL draft in 2025.
Although the Pac-12 hasn’t officially come to an end, fans are sure to miss the Friday night football games.
thesamohinews@gmail.com