According to sources, USC and UCLA will join the Big Ten as early as 2024, a little over a year after Oklahoma and Texas decided to join the SEC. This time around, the consequences of the latest shift to college sports could be worse.
The move may be a death sentence for the conference. It's possible that it's another step towards super conferences. The next dominoes will fall.
The college sports reporters weighed in on what will happen next.
David Hale is a person.
The Pac-12 was completely caught off-guard by the move. It will take some time to figure out what happens with the conference because Oregon and Washington have an incentive to leave. Is it true that other schools seek preservation options? Utah and Colorado are both in the Big 12. The loss of USC and UCLA will have little effect on schools like San Diego State or Idaho. There is a chance that this will serve as a death blow for the conference. The idea that it can compete without the Los Angeles schools is ridiculous.
This is great for the L.A. programs but the toughest outcome for the rest of the conference that was already struggling.
There is a sense of surprise among those schools that were expecting USC to have a positive trickle down effect. The Pac-12's marquee program is gone and what's left is a lot of unanswered questions.
It's simple to understand the incentive for those L.A. schools. The conference could wave goodbye to any semblance of prestige or power if Oregon and Washington followed.
Adding USC and UCLA to the Big Ten expands the conference's footprint with big-name schools. USC hired Lincoln Riley from Oklahoma, and they've been in the news a lot. The reputation of the conference will be helped by the success of Riley at USC.
When it comes to recruiting, having offensive powers such as Riley and Day in the same conference is going to help with the perception. The Big Ten has four coaches whose teams finished in the top 25 of total offensive yards per game last season and if Riley can get USC back in the College Football Playoff conversation, it will make the conference stronger.
This doesn't make the conference an SEC-style superpower, but it is a step in the direction of protecting the Big Ten from being left behind. If the opportunity arises in the future as more conferences expand and we move closer to super conferences, more teams out west could be added.
There will still be questions about scheduling and adding two teams that are three time zones away from most of the other schools in the conference, but the positives for the Big Ten outweigh any possible negatives that might arise.
The "handshake agreement" between the Big Ten and thePac-12 seemed to hold up over time. The idea of a handshake agreement keeping realignment from happening again was ridiculous. There are more questions about the futures of the two conferences than there were a year ago.
The Big 12 didn't know what to make of Texas and Oklahoma leaving. No one knew what a new television contract would look like without its top two brands. The Pac-12 is facing an expiring television contract with its two biggest brands, with more departures possibly on the way.
It is financially impossible to leave the ACC and join the SEC or Big Ten because of the league's grant of rights through 2036. At least for right now is the key phrase. Several schools in the conference have looked into the possibility of withdrawing from the league's grant of rights, but have not found a financially viable option.
The risk is not worth it at the moment. Major super conferences mean major dollars in television contracts, which means there will be money to pay out whatever it takes to get out. The programs that bring in the most value are Florida State. This will become every program for itself in the way we saw it during the realignment shakeup. There are serious questions about the futures of the Big 12 and thePac-12.
The Big Ten or SEC would get a financial boost from Notre Dame. The problem is that the Irish don't really want to shift away from independence.
There are a number of ways this can change.
During last year's round of realignment, when Oklahoma and Texas announced plans to join the SEC, the Irish held strong to independence but made a few subtle changes. Notre Dame doesn't have a home for its non- football sports. Should the school join a conference full-time, it must be theACC, but what happens if the conference is threatened by a move to super conferences? The Irish need a way to the playoffs. Most expansion models would make that path even easier since Notre Dame has made it to the playoffs twice. Is it possible that Notre Dame could survive as an independent in a world where one or two super conferences dictate the playoffs?
For a national brand like Notre Dame, independence is a relic of another era of college football. It is possible that the model of college football can't exist if more consolidation happens down the road.
Jeff Borzello said that recruiting is the one thing to watch. It will be more of a challenge for USC than it will be for UCLA because of their blueblood status. Only one of the Bruins' last nine signees has come from east of Las Vegas, which is why UCLA is stuck in its region. USC has 13 of its last 15 signees going to high school in California. Will they want to play in the Big Ten?
Both schools will have something new to offer. They can go into Midwest cities and tell prospects that they can still play in front of family and friends in southern California for the rest of the year. Both schools have big enough brands and cachet to walk into high schools and living rooms outside of their regions.
UCLA hopes to raise the Big Ten's hopes of winning its first national championship since 2000 but will have more consistent competition at the top of the league. USC will have more company in the middle of the pack, but they have won 73 games in the last three years, so they are not going to the Big Ten to be a pushover.
Several teams have found success in the conference, most recently Oregon under Kelly Graves, but as long as Tara VanDerveer is in Palo Alto, UCLA, USC and the rest of the conference are just trying to chaseStanford, which has dominated the league USC and UCLA, which have been the better team in recent years, are going to join a more competitive conference with more parity. In the race for the regular-season title, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan, and Ohio State all finished within a half-game of each other, while Indiana and Nebraska also made the NCAA tournament.
Mechelle Voepel thinks it's a travel and logistical nightmare. UCLA and USC have strong Olympic sports histories that go back a long way on the men's and women's side, and now those athletes will be spending a lot of time on planes competing as far away as three time zones.
USC and UCLA have seven NCAA women's volleyball titles between them, which is more than any other program in the Pacific-12. The Big Ten is the top volleyball conference with Wisconsin, Penn State, and Nebraska all having 12 NCAA titles. This will be volleyball's version of a super conference.
The UCLA men's volleyball team has won 19 NCAA titles in the past. UCLA and USC don't play conference slates in men's volleyball because they don't have as many men as women's volleyball teams.
The Bruins last went to the College Cup in 2011. Indiana and Maryland have won eight and four titles, respectively, in the Big Ten. USC and UCLA have both won national titles in women's soccer. Penn State won the NCAA title in 2015.
Baseball and softball are legendary programs. The Big Ten has not had a baseball championship in 50 years. The Big Ten has a single softball title. It's not something UCLA's and USC's baseball and softball programs look forward to doing.
It's hard to imagine the SEC and Big Ten not wanting a playoff if they can get more teams in a bigger field and make more money from it.
That answer could be affected by any further changes. According to multiple sources, this isn't the end of realignment. The best teams in the conference will play each other in the conference championship game in order to get into the playoffs. Utah and Oregon are the best teams without USC and UCLA. It's fair to ask if this might change the stance of the Pac-12 in regards to automatic qualification.
It's a quiet summer as far as any expansion talks are concerned, which will allow for some time for emotions to settle. The timing of when Oklahoma and Texas announced their move to the SEC was a big factor in derailing expansion.
Critics will question the decision of the conference to vote against expansion. USC and UCLA might have made the move if they had known the playoffs were a 12-team format.
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