Most college football fans thought when the calendar turned to August that conference realignment talks would subside and fall camps across the country would be the priority.
In the words of the great Lee Corso, “Not so fast my friend.”
As first reported by Yahoo’s Dan Wetzel, and confirmed by Sports Illustrated, a handful of Big Ten presidents have held internal talks about potentially adding more Pac-12 teams to the mix in the next stage of conference realignment. Wetzel notes that sources say “the discussions are in the very early stages,” and that no expansion decisions are “considered imminent.”
Following Colorado’s announcement of their exit from the Pac-12 to the Big 12 in the near future, the Pac-12 expedited talks about the league’s next media rights deal in hopes of keeping the remaining member schools appeased before other conferences stepped in and lured some more big names away.
Wetzel’s report mentioned Oregon, Cal, Washington and Stanford as four schools that are seen as potential targets for the Big Ten, which already poached UCLA and USC from the Pac-12 in the summer of 2022.
Now, with USC and UCLA set to join the Big Ten in 2024, some within the Big Ten see more potential targets in the Pac-12 as the conference flounders, putting even more pressure on the Pac-12 to get a new television deal in flight to stave off potential bidders.
