UCLA's the deadbeat dad trying to get out of child support payments because they spent their entire paycheck on cigarettes and booze.
Those Calimony checks better keep clearing; UCLA's decision to join the Big Ten and blow up the PAC-12 is what cost the entire UC system money. They shouldn't be able to renege on payments now after mismanaging the rest of their new paycheck as well.
Alternatively, if UCLA's gross financial management means they can't afford Calimony anymore, then maybe they shouldn't be allowed to make those financial decisions going forward.
Oregon State fan here. I hate all those greedy bastard schools that killed the PAC 12 in search of more money and fame. I hope they all go broke traveling across the country in search of it.
I appreciated your comments. But why "Death to the ACC?" It seems to me that even with the lopsided financials, we came to them with our hat in hand, pleading to be taken in. And they've taken us in. Of course it was only at a very steep price, but what did anyone expect?
I say "Beat the ACC, thanks for taking us in, have fun dealing with JKS and Tosh. There's going to a lot more where they come from."
A fair point and in retrospect I wish I hadn’t included that line as it distracts from the larger point. Mostly I was expressing my dissatisfaction with being in the ACC, even though I acknowledge it’s the best option currently available.
I'm quite grateful to the ACC -- we had no pots to piss in and they gave us one. And begrudgingly to the Furd for bringing us along. fUCLA screwed us and really all of the Pac-12 schools. We were much better together. It seems Oregon is the only former Pac school that is faring well in BIG10 fooseball -- I don't see fUCLA or Washington being anything other than middling teams in that conference when they both had a shot in the Pac. U$C's fate is still undetermined, but they seem to be more like a team that will generally crack the top 25 but never win the conference. The fact that the best attended game of the season (other than perhaps Furd) will be our home opener against UCLA says it all -- Pac schools/fan bases want Pac football back.
Still -- thank you ACC for taking us and throwing a life line for the next round of conference realignment. Now let's get pumped for playing in that wierd dome in Western NY! What could be more exciting?
Also F&*% UCLA. May we please bury them tomorrow night.
Never, ever thought I would be grateful to Stanford, but they were working the phones hard to take Cal with them. I’m glad the ACC took Cal in, even if the logistics are bad. What was the alternative, the BIG XII? Staying in the PAC 12 could have opened the opportunity for conference championships, but did Cal want to become the James Madison of the West Coast?
Great article and yup, the move pretty much went as expected to anyone with 1/2 a brain. UCLA thought they could return to the glory days by joining a high profile conference only to end up worse than before. I honestly thought the PAC 12 was on the rise and with better management, would be just below the Big Ten and SEC.
This. I don't understand why more Cal fans don't understand how supremely obnoxious the bruins are. They ride USC's coattails in athletics, and they ride ours in academics.
They're completely delusional. 2012: Hey, Jim Mora went 6-3 in conference, we're going to be national champs! 2015: Hey, Mora can only finish 6-3 in conference, but we're supposed to be national champs... FIRE EVERYBODY! Hey, we couldn't beat Cal in the US News rankings, so we gave US News a bunch of cash to change the formula!
Bunch of petulant, churlish nitwits who should've studied harder.
Everything here is dead-on nails and very well-written. Except you left out a villain in this tale of UCLA's Neolithic incompetence.
Dan Guerrero.
Martin Jarmond's predecessor as UCLA AD was the Calvin Coolidge of this tale: setting the table for the destruction to follow. He rang up a more than $40 million department deficit IN TWO YEARS. His final two years as AD, I should add. Then, he peace-outed, leaving Jarmond--our Herbert Hoover here--without a chair once the music stopped.
Chip Kelly, Steve Alford, anyone? How about buying out Jim Mora at $12.5 million? The coach that helped rebuild your broke-dick program.
The Bruins' athletic department, meanwhile, needed loans from the main campus to cover the shortfall.
And yes, anyone with self-awareness and an IQ above a ficus plant could see what was coming once UCLA followed its arrogant rivals to the east to the East.
I remember telling a UCLA fan acquaintance that you're about to become the Big 18's Nebraska of the West Coast. He wouldn't hear of it, telling me "The recruiting pipeline is about to get much bigger. We'll win 8-9 games a season now."
How's that working out for you? Being right never gets old.
Big picture reality: the neoliberal cancer infecting college football has been metastasizing across all of our major institutions (military, media, medical, academic, congress, courts, etc.) since the watershed year 1968: Tet, MLK, RFK, Prague, Chicago, Mexico City, RMN. I love Cal and root hard for my school, but it deeply pains me to see the birthplace of the Free Speech Movement take a body blow during an ongoing fascist coup. We shall overcome. Go Bears!
100% spot on! Great article. UCLA totally took the bait. There was a Perfect Storm of vulnerability for the Pac 12 and UCLA did the unthinkable. That said, the business side has changed even further since then, and high hopes there will be a full circle back to realigning the west coast schools.
To be honest, I'm happy to be in the ACC right now. Rebuild the program for a few years with an easier schedule and a national audience. Then be firing on all cylinders when realignment comes back around.
UCLA’s Chancellor made a colossal error of judgment in not consulting with UC President and Regents. Our rivalries with the southern schools is real—I still remember Johnny O. No room in the Spirit of Cal, Let there be Light, and We Beside the Shining Sea for petty hate and mean comments that only lessen us and reflect badly on our team and University.
The move doesn't happen without the approval of the UC President and Regents as they have the ultimate authority and have to sign off on it. Or am I missing something? Having said that, I hope we put a beat down on UCLA tomorrow.
UCLA fan here post game. Actually think you guys will be better off with Tosh than you’ve been with Wilcox in years, and your coaches, just like your roster, will look really good by years end.
Re: blowing up the Pac-12 — I have lots of thoughts on this.
I’m one of the few online fans that acknowledges UCLA’s responsibility in being a primary driver of it. But that doesn’t let off the rest of the Pac-12 schools — especially all of the California schools — for everything that led to its weakening and its demise.
The California schools did not continue to invest in their FB and BB programs coasted on their past success, all while continuing to allow champagne Larry to bilk all of us out of millions. And the landmark contract that we made with ESPN and Fox in the 2010s certainly didn’t mean shit when the SEC completely leapfrogged everyone by 2022.
After Oregon and Washington defected to B1G I listened to Brock Huard on a radio program make this exact point about lack of resource investment from the schools. He was certainly coping for his alma mater’s defection and was a Fox shill at the time, but I’m 100% certain he was relaying exactly how his bosses saw their original “investment” in the Pac-12, and probably why they engineered the USC/UCLA defections.
You guys and Stanford were as or more pathetic in how you supported your programs vs UCLA—and don’t you dare push back on this because you had your own Martin Jarmond with Jim Knowlton. It’s like the California schools had the absolute certainty (arrogance, I would call it) that the Pac-12 was too big to fail, and that their place in the athletic landscape was supposed to be confused with their prestige in academia by the rest of the country. Ten years of irrelevance on the biggest FB and BB stages proved otherwise.
It was the ultimate case of FAFO and unfortunately the entire conference found out. USC and UCLA are finding out as well, after the fact. A shame none of the people who are responsible for it are around anymore to pay for it. But as far as us and Berkeley go, it shouldn’t have taken all of this for the UC Regents to wake the fuck up and actually pay attention to the biggest marketing tool FBS universities have to enhance their profile in the US across the board.
It’s not just a marketing tool now though, it’s a business. I’m glad both universities have capable leaders in Rich Lyons and Julio Frenk, and Bob Myers advocating for us on the Board of Regents. But it never should have come to this, and you guys should acknowledge that your campus antipathy to the major sports, along with Stanford’s and UCLA’s — as well as USC’s failed leadership from the 2010s onward — has a lot to do with the miserable state of things today.
From the time I was a kid I always wondered why the baby bruins were almost always more successful at football than the Golden Bears. The way it was explained to me was that a) for some reason their athletic department was allowed to do deficit spending and Cal wasn't and b) UCLA bent the admission standards to admit players that would not be smart enough to get into Cal. Looks like both those differences were significant contributions to UCLA's delusions which made them decide to follow USC and blow up the Pac 12.
On the other hand, when everyone who was leaving were busy divvying up the money left in the Pac 12, I was thrilled that Oregon State and Washington State said "not so fast, we're not leaving the Pac 12 so all that money belongs to us!" I will be cheering on the newly reconstituted Pac 12 in every game except when/if they play Cal. I wish Cal and Stanford would have had more vision than to leave for the ACC. The Bears would have ruled the new Pac12 and I finally would have gotten to go to a Rose Bowl game when Cal was playing!
Staying in the Pac and winning the conference wouldn't have given Cal a spot in the Rose Bowl since the Rose Bowl is the site of a playoff quarter final or semifinal game now. Lame.
Okay, my bad for wishing for something that can't happen. But I've seen Cal snatch victory from the jaws of defeat for decades so I can't help but be cynical about Cal's chances of throwing enough money at the football program to see Cal in a BCS playoff game (which could conceivably be the Rose Bowl) - although I continue to hope it will happen. I'm old enough to remember when Cal was ranked second in the nation midseason and then didn't win another game. I'm also NOT old enough to remember Cal in a Rose Bowl game.
UCLA's the deadbeat dad trying to get out of child support payments because they spent their entire paycheck on cigarettes and booze.
Those Calimony checks better keep clearing; UCLA's decision to join the Big Ten and blow up the PAC-12 is what cost the entire UC system money. They shouldn't be able to renege on payments now after mismanaging the rest of their new paycheck as well.
Alternatively, if UCLA's gross financial management means they can't afford Calimony anymore, then maybe they shouldn't be allowed to make those financial decisions going forward.
UCLOL!
Oregon State fan here. I hate all those greedy bastard schools that killed the PAC 12 in search of more money and fame. I hope they all go broke traveling across the country in search of it.
Just to clarify, it wasn’t us. We were screwed and it is outraging that you and Wazzu were left in the cold.
I appreciated your comments. But why "Death to the ACC?" It seems to me that even with the lopsided financials, we came to them with our hat in hand, pleading to be taken in. And they've taken us in. Of course it was only at a very steep price, but what did anyone expect?
I say "Beat the ACC, thanks for taking us in, have fun dealing with JKS and Tosh. There's going to a lot more where they come from."
A fair point and in retrospect I wish I hadn’t included that line as it distracts from the larger point. Mostly I was expressing my dissatisfaction with being in the ACC, even though I acknowledge it’s the best option currently available.
With you here...the "Death to ACC" hit me the same way. Felt a bit dissonant.
I'm quite grateful to the ACC -- we had no pots to piss in and they gave us one. And begrudgingly to the Furd for bringing us along. fUCLA screwed us and really all of the Pac-12 schools. We were much better together. It seems Oregon is the only former Pac school that is faring well in BIG10 fooseball -- I don't see fUCLA or Washington being anything other than middling teams in that conference when they both had a shot in the Pac. U$C's fate is still undetermined, but they seem to be more like a team that will generally crack the top 25 but never win the conference. The fact that the best attended game of the season (other than perhaps Furd) will be our home opener against UCLA says it all -- Pac schools/fan bases want Pac football back.
Still -- thank you ACC for taking us and throwing a life line for the next round of conference realignment. Now let's get pumped for playing in that wierd dome in Western NY! What could be more exciting?
Also F&*% UCLA. May we please bury them tomorrow night.
Never, ever thought I would be grateful to Stanford, but they were working the phones hard to take Cal with them. I’m glad the ACC took Cal in, even if the logistics are bad. What was the alternative, the BIG XII? Staying in the PAC 12 could have opened the opportunity for conference championships, but did Cal want to become the James Madison of the West Coast?
Great article and yup, the move pretty much went as expected to anyone with 1/2 a brain. UCLA thought they could return to the glory days by joining a high profile conference only to end up worse than before. I honestly thought the PAC 12 was on the rise and with better management, would be just below the Big Ten and SEC.
This. I don't understand why more Cal fans don't understand how supremely obnoxious the bruins are. They ride USC's coattails in athletics, and they ride ours in academics.
They're completely delusional. 2012: Hey, Jim Mora went 6-3 in conference, we're going to be national champs! 2015: Hey, Mora can only finish 6-3 in conference, but we're supposed to be national champs... FIRE EVERYBODY! Hey, we couldn't beat Cal in the US News rankings, so we gave US News a bunch of cash to change the formula!
Bunch of petulant, churlish nitwits who should've studied harder.
Cathartic, thank you.
Everything here is dead-on nails and very well-written. Except you left out a villain in this tale of UCLA's Neolithic incompetence.
Dan Guerrero.
Martin Jarmond's predecessor as UCLA AD was the Calvin Coolidge of this tale: setting the table for the destruction to follow. He rang up a more than $40 million department deficit IN TWO YEARS. His final two years as AD, I should add. Then, he peace-outed, leaving Jarmond--our Herbert Hoover here--without a chair once the music stopped.
Chip Kelly, Steve Alford, anyone? How about buying out Jim Mora at $12.5 million? The coach that helped rebuild your broke-dick program.
The Bruins' athletic department, meanwhile, needed loans from the main campus to cover the shortfall.
And yes, anyone with self-awareness and an IQ above a ficus plant could see what was coming once UCLA followed its arrogant rivals to the east to the East.
I remember telling a UCLA fan acquaintance that you're about to become the Big 18's Nebraska of the West Coast. He wouldn't hear of it, telling me "The recruiting pipeline is about to get much bigger. We'll win 8-9 games a season now."
How's that working out for you? Being right never gets old.
Agreement with everything except the ending, which I say is “Let’s make a mockery of this stupid fricken league!”
Big picture reality: the neoliberal cancer infecting college football has been metastasizing across all of our major institutions (military, media, medical, academic, congress, courts, etc.) since the watershed year 1968: Tet, MLK, RFK, Prague, Chicago, Mexico City, RMN. I love Cal and root hard for my school, but it deeply pains me to see the birthplace of the Free Speech Movement take a body blow during an ongoing fascist coup. We shall overcome. Go Bears!
100% spot on! Great article. UCLA totally took the bait. There was a Perfect Storm of vulnerability for the Pac 12 and UCLA did the unthinkable. That said, the business side has changed even further since then, and high hopes there will be a full circle back to realigning the west coast schools.
To be honest, I'm happy to be in the ACC right now. Rebuild the program for a few years with an easier schedule and a national audience. Then be firing on all cylinders when realignment comes back around.
Brilliant and right on the money (so to speak).
UCLA’s Chancellor made a colossal error of judgment in not consulting with UC President and Regents. Our rivalries with the southern schools is real—I still remember Johnny O. No room in the Spirit of Cal, Let there be Light, and We Beside the Shining Sea for petty hate and mean comments that only lessen us and reflect badly on our team and University.
The move doesn't happen without the approval of the UC President and Regents as they have the ultimate authority and have to sign off on it. Or am I missing something? Having said that, I hope we put a beat down on UCLA tomorrow.
The regents were PISSED. They found out after the announcement.
Drop the effing mic...you said it all.
UCLA fan here post game. Actually think you guys will be better off with Tosh than you’ve been with Wilcox in years, and your coaches, just like your roster, will look really good by years end.
Re: blowing up the Pac-12 — I have lots of thoughts on this.
I’m one of the few online fans that acknowledges UCLA’s responsibility in being a primary driver of it. But that doesn’t let off the rest of the Pac-12 schools — especially all of the California schools — for everything that led to its weakening and its demise.
The California schools did not continue to invest in their FB and BB programs coasted on their past success, all while continuing to allow champagne Larry to bilk all of us out of millions. And the landmark contract that we made with ESPN and Fox in the 2010s certainly didn’t mean shit when the SEC completely leapfrogged everyone by 2022.
After Oregon and Washington defected to B1G I listened to Brock Huard on a radio program make this exact point about lack of resource investment from the schools. He was certainly coping for his alma mater’s defection and was a Fox shill at the time, but I’m 100% certain he was relaying exactly how his bosses saw their original “investment” in the Pac-12, and probably why they engineered the USC/UCLA defections.
You guys and Stanford were as or more pathetic in how you supported your programs vs UCLA—and don’t you dare push back on this because you had your own Martin Jarmond with Jim Knowlton. It’s like the California schools had the absolute certainty (arrogance, I would call it) that the Pac-12 was too big to fail, and that their place in the athletic landscape was supposed to be confused with their prestige in academia by the rest of the country. Ten years of irrelevance on the biggest FB and BB stages proved otherwise.
It was the ultimate case of FAFO and unfortunately the entire conference found out. USC and UCLA are finding out as well, after the fact. A shame none of the people who are responsible for it are around anymore to pay for it. But as far as us and Berkeley go, it shouldn’t have taken all of this for the UC Regents to wake the fuck up and actually pay attention to the biggest marketing tool FBS universities have to enhance their profile in the US across the board.
It’s not just a marketing tool now though, it’s a business. I’m glad both universities have capable leaders in Rich Lyons and Julio Frenk, and Bob Myers advocating for us on the Board of Regents. But it never should have come to this, and you guys should acknowledge that your campus antipathy to the major sports, along with Stanford’s and UCLA’s — as well as USC’s failed leadership from the 2010s onward — has a lot to do with the miserable state of things today.
From the time I was a kid I always wondered why the baby bruins were almost always more successful at football than the Golden Bears. The way it was explained to me was that a) for some reason their athletic department was allowed to do deficit spending and Cal wasn't and b) UCLA bent the admission standards to admit players that would not be smart enough to get into Cal. Looks like both those differences were significant contributions to UCLA's delusions which made them decide to follow USC and blow up the Pac 12.
On the other hand, when everyone who was leaving were busy divvying up the money left in the Pac 12, I was thrilled that Oregon State and Washington State said "not so fast, we're not leaving the Pac 12 so all that money belongs to us!" I will be cheering on the newly reconstituted Pac 12 in every game except when/if they play Cal. I wish Cal and Stanford would have had more vision than to leave for the ACC. The Bears would have ruled the new Pac12 and I finally would have gotten to go to a Rose Bowl game when Cal was playing!
Staying in the Pac and winning the conference wouldn't have given Cal a spot in the Rose Bowl since the Rose Bowl is the site of a playoff quarter final or semifinal game now. Lame.
Okay, my bad for wishing for something that can't happen. But I've seen Cal snatch victory from the jaws of defeat for decades so I can't help but be cynical about Cal's chances of throwing enough money at the football program to see Cal in a BCS playoff game (which could conceivably be the Rose Bowl) - although I continue to hope it will happen. I'm old enough to remember when Cal was ranked second in the nation midseason and then didn't win another game. I'm also NOT old enough to remember Cal in a Rose Bowl game.