The final week before the Pac-12 imploded shows why the conference failed

The last week of the Pac-12’s battle for survival showed that the conference really wasn’t in battle mode to begin with.

The final days — then hours — of the Pac-12 Conference as we have known it were marked by the silence more than anything else. There was no desperation, no urgent scrambling to produce a revised plan with bold strokes. It was Apple or bust, in the absence of additional information and reportage which might yet come to light.

Maybe we will get more details that show the Pac-12 fought really hard to save itself and its members, but based on what we know, the conference didn’t appear to put up that much of a fight in the end.

We asked out loud:

“Where’s the Plan B? Was the Pac-12 really not prepared for a worst-case scenario? That’s what all those board meetings and strategy sessions were supposed to create: preparedness for the worst. No one seems to be doing anything while the conference dies a very public death.

“Maybe there’s an 11th-hour intervention, but we’re not seeing signs of it.

“It’s so Pac-12 it hurts.”

It hurts to the point of death.

Let’s relive some of the bizarre, and insufficient, and weak, and unconvincing half-measures the Pac-12 timidly put forth as the clock ticked on its existence this past week: