In a perverse sort of way, you have to admire the chutzpah of the Pac-12 and its member schools.
Recently, the league reversed an earlier decision (this is getting to be habit) that would allow its schools to play games against nonconference opponents, but with this proviso:
The games must be played at the home field of the Pac-12 school and visiting teams must submit to Pac-12 COVID-19 protocols. Also, the games must be broadcast only by the Pac-12’s TV partners, Fox and ESPN. And the clincher — at least in the case of the offer that the University of Washington made to play BYU — they won’t get a cut of the TV money. That goes only to the Pac-12 host and the conference.
All this and more for the privilege of being on the same field as a Pac-12 team.
OK, I can see we have a lot of snarky comments and questions out there, such as, who do these guys think they are?
We’ll cover everything. Just sit down and be patient. We’ll get to you.
Apparently, the Pac-12 is under the delusion that the league is still one of the big dogs in college football and therefore in a strong bargaining position. Feel free to laugh HERE.
Memo to Pac 12: The 1960s and ’70s are over.
The Pac-12 is a Power Five conference in name only; its glory days are long gone, if there were any (who can remember that long ago). The league is barely relevant, but still bills itself as “The League of Champions.” That moniker might apply to Olympic sports, but not football and certainly not basketball. The Pac-12 hasn’t won a national football championship since USC claimed a three-way tie in 2007.
The league has lost 11 of its last 15 games to SEC teams; 16 of its last 19 to Big Ten teams; 20 of its last 33 to Big 12 teams; and 20 of its last 31 bowl games.
There have been six college football playoffs so far, offering a total of 24 berths; the Pac-12 has claimed just two of them, by far the worst among Power Five conferences.
If that didn’t humble the Pac-12, then the current season should have sobered it up. It has been a disaster. Last summer the Pac-12 said it would play a conference-only schedule and then two weeks later it canceled the season completely and then, after all the other Power Five conferences decided to play, the Pac-12 reversed field again and decided it would play a shortened, conference-only season, beginning Nov. 7, long after everyone else had begun playing games. Last week the Pac-12 reversed field again — the league has reversed field more often than Mike Garrett in the open field (remember him? Your parents do); the league said it will now allow its teams to play nonconference games to make up for the canceled games in what is an obvious attempt to recover lost money, if not save face.
The Pac-12 has made its mess with all its dithering; now it wants other teams to help fix it. Sure, Pac-12 schools will play anybody, provided they come to their place and play on their terms. First the league cancels all those nonconference games, costing dozens of schools millions of dollars and their athletes dozens of games, and now they’re saying please, come back and play us on our home fields and let us recoup the money with our TV contracts and give our athletes a little exercise.
And, by the way, you have to undergo their pre-game COVID-19 tests. By the way, whatever protocols the league has in place aren’t any more effective than protocols elsewhere — the league has canceled one-third of its games (7 of 21) due to coronavirus outbreaks.
The league is not in a position of strength, it just acts like it is. It cannot dictate terms and expect teams, such as BYU, to come running to do their bidding. To observe the actions of the Pac-12, you’d think OJ Simpson and Marcus Allen were still running around on the gridiron and John McKay was still on the sideline (ask your parents).
The league found itself falling behind when it realized everyone else was going on with the football season and it has been playing catchup ever since. Anyone want to help them catch up?
Washington’s offer to BYU — perhaps an attempt to move No. 9 Oregon ahead of No. 8 BYU in the rankings? — was clever but insulting. So is the league’s attempt to lure other schools to play them only on their terms.