With the dust settled on the latest round of conference realignment musical chairs (at least, for now), there are four Pac-12 schools remaining without a clear home come 2024: Stanford, Cal, Oregon State and Washington State. As Cougars school president Kirk Schulz described it in an interview on Wednesday with ESPN’s Pete Thamel: “It’s like a breakup; it’s awkward. No one wants to sit there for too long.”
Following USC and UCLA’s defection for the Big Ten last year, Oregon and Washington have followed suit to join the conference. The Big 12, meanwhile, has added Colorado, Utah, Arizona and Arizona State. All of the moves will take place ahead of the 2024 fall season.
With the situation far from resolved for the remaining four Pac-12 schools, Schulz lamented the state of college sports and pointed to realignment as the primary culprit for selfish behavior from university leaders.
“College athletics is at its worst with this realignment stuff,” Schulz said. “Everyone is truly looking out for themselves. What it also does is changes behavior and people stop being honest with each other.”
As for what comes next for the Pac-12 holdovers, a resolution still remains unclear. The ACC is in early discussions to add Stanford and Cal, which would certainly be a stretch considering “Atlantic Coast” is in the name of the league. Schulz, meanwhile, divulged that both Washington State and Oregon State have been in contact with the Mountain West, though there would still need to be additional financial support in place to make such a move feasible.
“It may be the two of us accept an invitation to join [the Mountain West], and we rely on private dollars to make sure our budgets are at the top of the league,” Schulz said.
