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Sports Illustrated
Sports Illustrated
Sport
Thomas Neumann

College Football Fans Pour One Out For Pac-12 As Conference Goes Out With a Bang

Football ESPN Pac12 Oregon (Organization) Washington

The Pac-12 Conference has provided football fans with myriad thrills over the decades, but alas, the party is over.

The Conference of Champions staged its last football game Friday night, and it didn’t disappoint with a rollicking contest that lived up to the hype with Washington edging Oregon, 34–31, at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.

The game provided an exclamation point to more than a century of gridiron excellence from a league that gave us luminaries such as Marcus Allen, John Elway, Troy Aikman, Marcus Mariota, Caleb Williams and so many other greats.

The Pac-12 was founded in 1915 as the Pacific Coast conference with four members: Cal, Washington, Oregon and Oregon Agricultural College (now Oregon State). USC, UCLA, Stanford and Washington State would join over the ensuing years, and the league became the Pac-8 in 1968. The admission of Arizona and Arizona State in 1978 created the Pac-10. Colorado and Utah joined in 2011 to usher in the Pac-12 era.

Moving forward, the league is splintering in several directions, with the Trojans, Bruins, Huskies and Ducks set to join the Big Ten; the Wildcats, Sun Devils, Buffaloes and Utes headed to the Big 12; the Golden Bears and Cardinal moving to the ACC; and the Beavers and Cougars forming an alliance with the Mountain West.

Now, Pac-12 football is a mere memory. There’s no more Pac-12 After Dark.

With that in mind, fans and pundits poured one out in a virtual sense on social media Friday night. Here are some of the best reactions:

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