Utah
Patrick Kinahan: Utah’s beloved Pac-12 football sadly dies
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SALT LAKE CITY — Like all bittersweet goodbyes, the impending divorce impacts literally millions of people connected to the long-term relationship.
More than 100 years of history, filled with countless outstanding memories, prematurely largely ends this weekend. For many, emotions run raw.
Pac-12 football, long recognized as the best conference in the west, concludes with the final slate of regular-season games and then next week with the championship game most likely between Oregon and Washington. With it goes deep associations through multiple configurations that extend back several generations.
In a familiar refrain, greed killed it. And for that pursuit, we metaphorically weep.
The well-documented demise began 15 months ago with the stunning announcement of UCLA and USC joining the Big Ten in time for the 2024 football season. For much of the next year, multiple remaining conference administrators went to great lengths to proclaim the Pac-12 intended to stay intact with the existing 10 athletic programs and potentially look to add another two members.
But it crashed last summer.
Colorado was the third program to bolt, returning to the Big 12 Conference it left to join the Pac-12 along with Utah in 2011. Dissatisfied with the ongoing television negotiations, Utah, Arizona and Arizona State jumped to the Big 12, and the Big Ten snatched up Oregon and Washington.
Unable to legitimately compete for a national championship in football, Utah enthusiastically welcomed the opportunity to join the Power Five when the Pac-12 sought a partner to join Colorado in increasing the conference by two.
The entire Utah community was ecstatic at the invitation, as fans celebrated the formal acceptance on the steps of the state capitol and plastered Pac-12 stickers on cars and any other surface they would stick.
Included in the glee was leaving behind bitter rival BYU, which chose to become an independent to get the desperately needed exposure in football.
After a few years of transition, Kyle Whittingham’s program has become a consistent force in the conference and now closes the beloved affiliation with one final game against Colorado this week before moving to the Big 12 next season.
At the time in August, Utah’s university and athletic administration put a happy face on the move even as the preference was to stay put. The truth is, once the conference began crumbling around them, the Utes had no choice.
“After this game’s over with, the Pac-12 is over with,” Whittingham said. “It’s sad. I’m not going to try to spin it any other way.”
Not that it had to be this way. Conference officials overestimated its worth during television negotiations and rejected a deal that ultimately went to the Big 12.
Smelling blood in the water, Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark acted quickly to poach four schools and effectively kill the Pac-12. With Stanford and Cal leaving for the ACC, only Oregon State and Washington State remain.
“It’s a tremendous loss,” Fox college football analyst Joel Klatt said during an interview on The Zone. “It’s been such a storied conference — conference of champions. I hate the fact that it’s going away, and at the same time it’s nobody’s fault but their own. The leadership of that conference did this to themselves. They had a deal on the table and didn’t take it.
“Once they didn’t take it and that deal went to the Big 12, then the media landscape changed and the dollars changed. The bottom line is, media dollars are not infinite and you’ve got to understand where your place is in the market and go and get the dollars that you think is necessary. And I don’t think the Pac-12 did that. Unfortunately, because of that, the conference is going to split up because these teams and programs had to go where they are going. They had no other choice.”
Farewell, Pac-12.