Oregon State and Washington State win court ruling, setting up more Pac-12 chaos

This is absolutely wild, but it’s par for the course in the Pac-12. The death of a conference could not be more dramatic.

The 2-Pac just won. The Pac-10 just lost. The Pac-12’s death — and how that will be resolved — continues to be one of the strangest dramas we have ever seen in college sports.

Jon Wilner of the Wilner Hotline offered this basic summary of what happened and what it means:

“After a two-and-a-half-hour hearing, Whitman County (Wash.) Superior Court Judge Gary Libey granted the schools’ request for a preliminary injunction that confirms they are the only remaining voting members of the shattered conference.

“The Pac-12 ‘will be governed by the two universities that have not submitted their notices of intent to withdraw,’ Libey said.

“However, Libey stayed his ruling until the end of the week as the defendant, Washington (acting on behalf of all 10 departing members), seeks an appeal from the Washington Supreme Court in Olympia.

“But the ruling Tuesday evening begins to clear the way for WSU and OSU to control more than $400 million in revenue for the current fiscal year and whatever long-term assets the conference maintains following the departure of 10 schools next summer.”

Oregon State and Washington State are in position to potentially recover a lot of lost revenue, but the court battles are far from over.

Reactions came in fast and furious, as you will see below:

Twitter reaction to Stanford, Cal and SMU joining the ACC

Stanford and Cal will play conference games vs Florida State, Miami, Clemson, Boston College, and Syracuse. Really smart, right?

Stanford and Cal-Berkeley will soon be in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Few sentences in the English language sound more absurd or ridiculous. Yet, that will be the new reality of college sports before too long.

The Trees of Palo Alto and the Bears of Berkeley will be part of a conference which includes the cities of Coral Gables, Florida; Tallahassee, Florida; Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts; Syracuse, New York; Pittsburgh; Clemson, South Carolina; Blacksburg, Virginia; Charlottesville, Virginia; and four locales in the state of North Carolina.

Normal, rational, logical stuff, right? None of this is logical, but it was the obvious play for Stanford if we assume the Big Ten Conference simply wasn’t interested in adding the Cardinal. The rationale from the ACC side is not as readily obvious for most college sports fans, but the conference will get some more television money from ESPN with these additions. Florida State fans would respond by saying the added money is nowhere near enough for the Seminoles to be satisfied with their current position in the ACC.

Welcome to the absurdity of college sports realignment. Reaction on social media, as you can imagine, was all over the map, which is a great way of describing Stanford and Cal going to the ACC: