Gonzaga Pac-12 move occurs only after Arizona and UCLA leave

The West Coast schools going to the Big Ten in all sports, not just football, places a huge burden on athletes for travel. Football games are just a dozen per year, with USC and other schools making only five or six road trips, some of them close to home (such as USC’s “road” game versus UCLA). For other sports, a lot more road trips are involved. Having football and non-football sports in the same conference never did make any sense. Oregon should have a football program in the Big Ten, but basketball and Olympic sports should remain in the Pac-12. That’s always how it should have been. The same goes for Arizona, UCLA, and the other Western schools no longer in the Pac-12. The Gonzaga move to the Pac-12 underscores this. GU could have joined UCLA and Arizona in the same conference. The fact that the move is occurring is good for the Pac-12 now, in 2024, but why didn’t this happen in 2022?

If the leaders and power brokers in college sports had any common sense, they would have put football and non-football (basketball) in separate categories. Every conference would be in more of a position to succeed. Gonzaga, UCLA, and Arizona would have made the Pac-12 an elite basketball conference, at least more than what we had in recent years. Arizona could stay in the Big 12 in football and create fresh, new gridiron matchups with the previously existing Big 12 schools. New football games, classic basketball rivalries. The Big 12 gets a better football brand, the Pac-12 improves its basketball brand. If we allowed football and basketball to operate on separate tracks instead of forcing schools to join new conferences in all sports, we would have a better overall situation.

Imagine a world in which San Diego State and Utah State join the Pac-12 in basketball but stay in the Mountain West for football. Boise State and Colorado State join the Pac-12 in football but stay in the Mountain West for basketball. The Pac-12 and Mountain West would be better in both sports if those scenarios became reality. We really should to have three national maps in college sports: one for football, one for basketball, one for the Olympic sports. It would make so much more sense and give conferences so much more flexibility to create competitive balance and quality.

Think about this point, too: If schools were members of two different conferences — one in football but another in basketball and/or the Olympic sports — there wouldn’t be a need for exit fees or penalty fees, at least not nearly at the level we see now. Maybe schools would pay a small fee, but it would be dramatically less as a consequence of being for only one sport, not all sports. The current setup, in which the Pac-12 is poised to pay the Mountain West tens of millions in exit fees, just doesn’t make any sense.

Having an 18- or 20-team conference just isn’t good for scheduling. Schools aren’t going to play each other on an annual basis, which used to be part of the charm and the attraction of being in the same conference. Backyard regional neighbors go at it each year. Not anymore.

If we had a world in which schools were football members in one conference and basketball members in another, we wouldn’t see the scale of full migration to other conferences that we have now. Split-sport membership would reduce overall conference size in each sport. Schools could have stayed where they were. Under the current model, schools have made a full exit from one conference, requiring conferences to replace members with other schools. Split-sport memberships would have reduced the scale of migration and maintained a manageable size for each conference.

Gonzaga to the Pac-12 raises this question, too: Is the West Coast Conference about to die? If Saint Mary’s leaves for the Pac-12, that becomes a greater possibility. If Saint Mary’s did leave for the Pac-12, maybe San Francisco or Portland might also want out. The Mountain West could be interested, too.

The key point here is that WCC schools don’t play FBS college football. Because realignment has generally involved schools migrating to other conferences in all sports, not just some, the WCC — with its lack of football-playing (FBS) schools — is more vulnerable now than it would have been in a context involving split-sport memberships . The WCC could stay intact in non-football sports and not worry about the effects of football. The Pac-12 is raiding the WCC only because it first struck out in the attempt to bring in football brands (such as Memphis, Tulane and UNLV). The Pac-12 pivoted to basketball because football had reached a dead end. If Arizona and UCLA were still in the Pac-12 as basketball members, one wonders if the Pac-12 would have landed Gonzaga. It did not do so when Arizona and UCLA were already there. Arizona and UCLA leaving the Pac-12 in all sports did play a role in the Pac-12 bringing aboard Gonzaga and thereby in endangering the West Coast Conference.

It didn’t have to be this way. It doesn’t have to be this way. Yet, it is.