LAS VEGAS — It is the best-worst-weirdest of times for the Pac-12 Conference, which comes together in the desert this week for a veritable Victorian Era drama that will play out on a football field.
There is pride. After toiling for years as the least powerful of the Power 5 football conferences, the Pac-12 is having a rebirth. It currently has six teams ranked in the top 17 in the AP poll for the first time in its history. The league has depth and talent and excellent coaching and dynamic quarterbacking. Correspondingly, it has a great shot at its first College Football Playoff bid since 2016.
And there is prejudice. The school carrying the Pac-12’s CFP hopes into the Friday night conference championship game is No. 4 USC, which along with crosstown co-conspirator UCLA is dumping the league for the Big Ten come 2024. (Unless the Bruins get caught in a Board of Regents bear trap on the way out. More on that later.) As Pac-12 standard bearers go, the Trojans aren’t the ideal choice. The two Los Angeles schools have engendered deep animosity by imperiling the conference they are leaving.
