The Pac-12 cans plans to expand
The conference announces it will not expand or take on any Big XII runaways.
Speculation has been swirling since Texas and Oklahoma made the move to join the SEC—how will this affect the Pac-12? Will we use this as an opportunity to collect any teams leaping from the sinking ship of the Big XII? Will we nab some up-and-coming West Coast teams to strengthen our position in the face of the growing SEC doom?
Well, step one was to enter an alliance with the Big Ten and the ACC to… accomplish something that isn’t entirely clear yet.
Still, the possibility still remained for a step two to expand the Pac-12 into teenagedom, but the Pac-12 shot down that possibility with a press release today. The conference announced that they consulted the Pac-12’s “Presidents, Chancellors[,] and Athletic Directors” and came to the decision to stay at 12 schools due to our “current competitive strength and cohesiveness” and “our ability as a conference to best support our student-athletes and to grow and thrive both academically and athletically.”
So, twelve remains the magic number for the time being. Our apologies to the Texas Techs and Iowa States of the world because it’s not you—it’s us.
if the Pac 12 expands, i propose it should only include states where there is an In-N-Out…so that includes Nevada & Texas. what’s more West coast than In-N-Out? and hopefully In-N-Out will expand into WA soon too.
8 of the Pac-12 member institutions are AAU members (Association of American Universities). That list includes (with year of membership) -
Cal (1900)
Stanf*rd (1900)
Washington (1950)
Colorado (1966)
Oregon (1969)
USC (1969)
UCLA (1974)
Arizona (1985)
I make note of this only because the statement from earlier today mentions "...our ability as a conference to thrive...both academically and athletically" as an important factor.
The only remaining Big XII schools that are already AAU member institutions (excluding Texas) are Kansas (1909) and Iowa State (1958). I theorize that those two schools would be a better fit for the B1G, certainly from a geographic perspective. At least Kansas would bring serious basketball cachet to the table.
The Pac-12 is largely constrained by geography and academics. Any of the natural academic fits for the Pac-12 are either within the conference or have gone to greener pastures (both financially and geographically).
I can understand why the Pac-12 was rumored as the driving force behind the alliance with the B1G and the ACC, no matter how loose that alliance may be. It's a defensive move against being shoved down to mid-major status as a conference. If that were to happen there's no guarantee that some current members wouldn't want to explore greener pastures.