The Pac 12 over the past 5 years have fallen down a little bit and haven’t gotten much credibility across College Football. Especially since the beginning of the CFB. Since 2014, only two appearances from the Pac 12 and one national title game.
The conference has been top heavy for a while and due to the “Pac 12 after dark”, not many people on the east coast and central time zones stay up to watch most of the games. That in itself is a disadvantage for the conference. Over the past week, we have taken a look at the other conferences and potential candidates for expansion.
The Pac 12 is the final one on the list as we have gone through the ACC, Big 10, Big 12, and SEC conferences. There is potential for big moves and for one side of the conference to be even more one-sided than it already is.
Records Since 2011:
| Arizona | 52-50 |
| Arizona State | 59-45 |
| California | 41-58 |
| Colorado | 34-66 |
| Oregon | 77-29 |
| Oregon State | 33-65 |
| Stanford | 82-26 |
| UCLA | 56-46 |
| USC | 70-41 |
| Utah | 62-41 |
| Washington | 70-37 |
| Washington State | 53-51 |
There are quite some notables while looking through this and who has adapted well to the conference out of the two expansion teams in 2011. Utah has excelled as they have made multiple conference championship games and been to a bowl every season since 2013.
While Colorado is well below .500 since joining the conference. Colorado has only been to one bowl game (in which they lost to Oklahoma State in the Alamo Bowl) and lost their lone conference championship appearance that same season in 2016.
Pac 12 has a chance to not only make some new alliances, but to also move around the division before making any of those moves yet. It could go a little something like this.
Potential New Pac 12:
| Pac 12 North: |
| Boise State |
| Oregon |
| Oregon State |
| Stanford |
| Utah |
| Washington |
| Washington State |
| Pac 12 South: |
| Arizona |
| Arizona State |
| California |
| Stanford |
| San Diego State |
| UCLA |
| USC |
With this movement, the Pac 12 North becomes the clear dominant division in the conference in Football with adding the best historical Non-Power 5 of the past decade. This movement also involves easier geographical teams moving closer to the division that makes more sense.
Utah will move up to the north and play closer to home rather than having to travel south every season. California will stay in the state for most of their division games as they’ll only have to leave the state for Arizona, Arizona State, and Colorado.
For the newcomers, Boise State adds more power to a division that features successful programs like Washington and Oregon. As well as a program on the rise in Washington State. The North will become an all out brawl and every game will matter with that amount of quality teams fighting for a spot in the title game in Santa Clara.
San Diego State will be added to the south with the movement of Cal into the south as well. San Diego State has done a very good job of competing at the GO5 level and has produced a ton of really good Running Backs within the past 3 seasons.
They might not succeed within the first 2 years, but San Diego has a good market and have a capable stadium with using the old Chargers stadium. With road Pac 12 fanbases coming, it should fill up the stadium some more and bring some excitement to the Aztecs athletic department.
Another candidate for the Pac 12 would be BYU instead of Boise State. But hypothetically speaking, BYU was already added to the conference as in the Big 12 Potential Realignment, they were added, as well as Cincinnnati.
Image Credit: https://autzenzoo.com/2014/12/09/oregon-ducks-quarterback-marcus-mariota-heisman-worthy-headed-to-new-york/
