It’s been a quiet week or so on the conference realignment front, while schools in the Pac-12 and Big 12 discussed whether or not there was a deal on the table between any of the teams, or rather a potential merger between the two conferences.
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Apparently, they couldn’t see eye to eye in the end, and it resulted in a report that came out on Monday night from ESPN’s Pete Thamel that shows that no merger will take place.
Talks about a partnership between the Big 12 and the Pac-12, which had been discussed extensively the past two weeks, have officially ended, sources told ESPN.
Officials from the Big 12 told Pac-12 officials on Monday that they’re no longer interested in exploring the partnership, sources said.
A Big 12 source said that the deal didn’t work for the Big 12 for “a multitude of reasons,” which included the fact that any potential deal wouldn’t have driven much revenue for the league. “It just didn’t work,” the source said.
Obviously, this impacts the Oregon Ducks, but is it a good thing or a bad? Well, you can look at it both ways — in the immediate sense or in the long term — but from a bird’s eye view, this should be beneficial for Oregon down the road. In the most simple sense, the Ducks should not have wanted to join the Big 12. They are better than that. A perfect world seems them go to the Big Ten, where they can compete and likely hold their own with schools like Ohio State, Michigan, and Penn State. Instead of settling for the Big 12
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and schools like Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, and Baylor, the Ducks will now get to enter wait-and-see mode while they continue to pursue those Big Ten dreams.
For Oregon it's great news that the Pac-12 isn't going to merge with the Big 12. That offered almost nothing to UO competitively. Ducks don't need to be with schools in Texas to recruit that state and already have TTech, OkSt, Baylor on future schedules. B1G goal stays alive.
— James Crepea (@JamesCrepea) July 19, 2022
So when will we know about a potential expansion to the Big Ten that could include Oregon? That’s yet to be determined, but while we wait, the Ducks can continue to try and grow their brand with Dan Lanning on the helm and become an attractive expansion team.
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