“Turn out the lights. The party’s over. They say that all good things must end. Call it a night. The party’s over. And tomorrow starts the same old thing again.”
If you’re old enough to recognize those lyrics, chances are you heard them on Monday Night Football, when Don Meredith pronounced a game as being done and dusted on ABC television.
The Pac-12 is turning out the lights. The party is over. The Conference of Champions is effectively done. The conference is down to four schools: Stanford, Cal, Oregon State and Washington State, after five schools jumped ship on an historic Friday. Utah followed Arizona, Arizona State, Oregon, and Washington out the door. While Oregon and Washington moved to the Big Ten, Utah joined Arizona and ASU in going to the Big 12 to form a 16-school conference. The Utes, Wildcats and Sun Devils quickly reunited with Colorado days after the Buffaloes began this domino effect.
Social media reaction was explosive, as you could well imagine. Emotions ran high. Here is a sampling of what went down on a landmark day in college sports: