Tag: Pac-12 Conference

The people who work at Trojans Wire, Buffaloes Wire, and Ducks Wire live in the West. One Trojans Wire writer lives in California, another in Arizona. Multiple Buffaloes Wire writers live in the state of Colorado, and multiple Ducks Wire writers live in Oregon. We’re Westerners who have identified with the Pac-12 Conference and what it has meant to us over the years. It’s a little more personal for the Oregon and USC writers in our group, given that we’ve been part of the Pac-12 since birth. For Colorado fans and bloggers, the association with the Pac-12 isn’t as longstanding. Still, this is an era which is ending when it didn’t have to.

The Pac-12 is playing such great football right now, and yet this conference won’t exist in a year. It’s all very sad.

We asked our panel of Pac-12 experts, “How annoyed are you that the Pac-12 CEO Group allowed this great conference to die?”

The answers:

Matt Wadleigh, Trojans and Buffaloes Wire: It’s a frustrating scenario all the way around, but it seemed bound to happen at some point. Once USC and UCLA left, there was no question the end was in sight.

Zachary Neel, Ducks Wire: It’s unfortunate, for sure. We also have to remember that the conference rarely, if ever, looks this strong. If we had 10 years of this type of production going back to 2013, then the conference doesn’t die. It’s more poor timing, in my mind.

Matt Zemek, Trojans Wire: It is both hugely depressing and extremely infuriating to watch all this great Pac-12 football one year before the conference dies. None of this needed to happen. What also gets me is that the Pac-12 CEO Group has nixed deals in the past which, if approved, would have helped the conference. George Kliavkoff needed to tell the CEOs to shut up and fall in line last year when ESPN offered the $30 million per school package. Kliavkoff obviously didn’t study history or exercise the leadership needed to tell the CEOs what they needed to hear. Such wimps. Such small men. All of this was preventable.

Catch all of Ducks Wire’s Pac-12 team overviews for the 2023 season:

Arizona — Arizona State — California — Colorado — Oregon State  — Stanford — UCLA — USC — Utah — Washington — Washington State

We noted that the complexion of the Pac-12 football season feels different after just one week.

“Colorado’s win over TCU was so impressive that it vaulted two Buffaloes into the Heisman Trophy spotlight after just one game,” we wrote. “Quarterback Shedeur Sanders threw for over 500 yards. Travis Hunter played receiver and quarterback and was, alongside Sanders, one of the two best players on the field. He logged close to 130 snaps in 100-degree Texas heat in Fort Worth and did not wear down late in the game. Hunter and Colorado simply defied the odds.

“Now, that USC-Colorado game on Sept. 30 in Boulder looks a lot more daunting for the Trojans.”

The balance of power in the middle and lower tiers of the Pac-12 Conference could be different from what we expected.

We asked a group of Oregon and Colorado experts — in addition to our Trojans Wire staff — the following question: How does Colorado’s emergence change the Pac-12 season for the conference as a whole?