OceaniaDuck

Just remember LS, the name that will go down in infamy as destroying the PAC-12 conference. GK is also culpable, but IMO not as much as LS. That said, I hope Oregon State and Wazzu follow the 4 corner schools at least to the BIG-12 as they are good enough to compete in that conference. Ideally, I do hope they can join us in the B1G but that seems like a stretch at least for now.

If all the rumors turn out to be true, LS's name will go down in infamy as the commissioner who destroyed the conference. GK inherited a mess to be sure, but sadly it doesn't seem like he was up to the task of helping the conference thrive, which is what he was hired for. All the university presidents who voted to keep LS on and thus enabled him also are to share in the blame. Additionally, rooting for the rest of the PAC to beat USC/UCLA and give them "proper" sendoffs to the B1G with losing records for stabbing the PAC-12 in the back. I guess I have one foot out the door now on the "I hope the PAC survives" train unless a miracle happens in the 11th hour.

Lol! I understand all the skepticism. I myself didn't believe the rumors about Colorado until it happened. And with GK painfully silent about the PAC-12 media deal, I'm not surprised anymore about bombshells happening within the conference lol.

This is huge if accurate - RIP PAC-12

https://athlonsports.com/college-football/big-ten-expansion-rumors-clemson-florida-state-oregon-washington

In an ideal world, the PAC continues on, Oregon stays put and USC/UCLA are convinced to come back home (with penalty fees for backing out of B1G agreement paid for by the conference). The PAC gets a media deal that everyone can live with for the time being and we're all one big happy family again (minus Colorado unfortunately). Down the road, the PAC adds SDSU and the conference will be thriving moving forward. Back to reality - Oregon stays put, and GK needs to hire someone with relevant experience help him close the PAC-12 media deal asap before other teams start to leave the conference. If Colorado can go back to its original home, I'm sure the same can happen in USC/UCLA's case if they find out they weren't a good fit in the B1G after all. I want to see the PAC survive and USC/UCLA come back even though the conference would have to pay any penalty fees and negotiate uneven revenue distributions among its members. Worst case scenario - Oregon needs to ramp up talks with the B1G to let them in.

No disrespect to the ACC, but no. Just no.

Although I wish this day would have never come and I was against it from the beginning, probably now time for Oregon to knock on the B1G's door and ask to be let in. The PAC, in my opinion, is done.

I would say with this news, stick a fork in the PAC, it's pretty much done.

Frankly, like what some have said, now I'm beginning to wonder if GK is any better than Larry Scott. The fact that there's still no media deal and a lot of uncertainty regarding that, I understand why some schools are exploring other options. If Colorado does leave, regardless of what they did or didn't contribute to the PAC, IMHO that would embolden other schools who were maybe just window shopping for another home to really move forward to close the deal. I really hope that doesn't happen.

Agree with this. Helfrich actually was a decent head coach IMHO. The Oregon brand at the time was the blur offense and MH was our guy. Again, IMHO, what did Helfrich in was his not-so-great hires when it came to DC. The Ducks O was actually still more or less pretty explosive during all of Helfrich's tenure. Unfortunately, OBD hit rock bottom when Brady Hoke was hired to lead the defense - our Swiss cheese D at the time just couldn't stop anybody. If Helfrich had hired a halfway decent DC, I believe he still would have been HC for at least a little while longer. There is always a lot of talk about how certain coaches are great assistant coaches but don't quite cut it being HC. I guess Brady Hoke is an anomaly as he is a not-so-great position coach but has had success being a HC lol.

Yup, this game should be a nail-biter - Texas Tech is no joke. I wouldn't be surprised if OBD escape Lubbock by a winning margin of a FG or less if indeed they are victorious. The possibility is very real that this could be a trap game for the Ducks if they don't play their hearts out. That said, I'm confident OBD will do well in this match-up. Go Ducks!

What I see in all of these PAC-10 doom and gloom articles is a play on the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies, but sports version, where the media wants certain events to fall into place, i.e., the "demise" of the PAC-10 so the media can get its way with college football, which unfortunately it already has to a large extent. I am skeptical of whatever Dennis Dodd and Paul Finebaum have to say regarding the state of affairs of the PAC-10 conference. Probably the only journalists I feel are credible are Jon Wilner and John Canzano. All the rest is white noise. I'm just waiting in anticipation as to what happens and hope GK negotiates a deal that will help the conference to move forward and thrive again.

Best wishes and prayers for a full recovery

I honestly hate what network TV and NIL has done to the college football landscape. I dream of the day when this whole madness implodes and everybody comes back home to where they belong - obviously for the PAC, it's USC and UCLA, for the Big XII - Texas, Oklahoma, maybe Nebraska(?), and so on.

I really hope the rest of the PAC-10 teams unite in a mission this upcoming season to just destroy USC and UCLA in "conference games" and give them a proper sendoff to the B1G with sub .500 records. Even if some PAC-10 teams lose all the rest of their games but beat USC and UCLA, I would qualify their seasons as a resounding success.

I'm very concerned about Texas Tech as a trap game. Especially if former Duck QB Tyler Shough is the starter for TT, you know he and the rest of the team will be fired up to face the Ducks. I think that game will be closer than most people think and the Ducks escape with a nail-biting victory IMHO.

Good points as well. I think more so now than in years past, and especially with the US News and World Report as well as other rankings of colleges that come out regularly, I think sadly there is more of a commitment to making money and gaining prestige like you stated. I also had to deal with the frustrations associated with taking classes taught by TA's lol. While there were some decent ones, unfortunately you could also tell that some of them only taught classes because they had to. I actually had better instructors on average at the community college I went to. But like many others, I did manage to make the best out of every situation and learned alot despite the subpar instruction IMHO for a few classes I took.

I think this retired(?) college professor makes some good points. He got his PhD from Stanford and taught at Duke U for a number of years:

Sorry but this goes too far. Just hold the actual perpetrators accountable. Why should the coaches and AD's be held accountable for the actions of others that they had absolutely nothing to do with? Just install more surveillance cameras or whatever else it takes to help identify any misbehaving fans should an unfortunate incident like that occur.

I want the Ducks to remain in the PAC-10. Sure, it seems there are greener pastures moving over to the B1G, but that conference is too crowded already, diluting the Ducks chances of making it to the CFP given the new format. Just finalize the best media rights deals we have already and run with it. Who knows? We may even stumble into becoming innovators of watching college football primarily on a new format. Also, for Kliavkoff to make a last ditch effort to keep USC and UCLA in the conference. Bring all AD's to the table. Have uneven revenue distributions if necessary to keep everybody happy. Additionally, still continue with plans to add SDSU to conference and possibly Fresno State. Not a big fan of SMU joining. As I said in other posts, winning cures everything. If PAC teams (minus USC and UCLA) win at least better than half the OOC games that matter, we will start to be respected as a conference again. In USC's heyday under Pete Carroll, the halo effect really generated interest in the conference. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but IMHO, that NCAA investigation into the so-called Reggie Bush scandal was bogus. At the time, the NCAA was full of SEC homeboys and Paul Dee, lead investigator from the University of Miami, was also in charge of one of the dirtiest programs in college football at the time. I actually did read the report, and everything sounded like trumped up baloney. I don't think other conferences liked that USC was dominating and did what they did to bring the program down. IMHO, the investigation had nothing to do with the spirit of adhering to the regulations, but more so to destroy the USC football program, which in turn brought the conference down. Anyways, to reiterate my answer, Oregon, along with Washington are better off staying put and becoming the new leading flag-bearers for the conference. Yes, like it or not, USC and to some extent UCLA were flag-bearers for the PAC-12, but to paraphrase Coach Carter, I guess we just need new leading flag-bearers.

Is Taggart at his new dream job?

Yes, I know what I'm going to say probably amounts to blasphemy, but looks like tOSU didn't want to risk a potential L on their record lol. I know it's "that school" up to the north but especially now, us PAC-10 brethren need to have each other's backs when it comes to OOC competition lol!

All the more reason why the conference needs to work hard to preserve itself. Sure, I'm being presumptuous, but when USC and UCLA figure out that the pastures weren't greener on the other side after all, we still need a PAC-12 they can come back to. Assuming SDSU and somebody else (SMU? Fresno State?) are already in the conference, that would give the PAC-14 even more leverage in negotiating media rights deals. Sadly in the meantime, the PAC will have to suffer through leaner times until the prodigal sons come back home.

In Utah's case, moving from the MWC to the PAC-12 has eventually worked out well for the program, being conference champs 2 years in a row after early struggles. IMHO, this is primarily due to Kyle Whittingham being the excellent HC that he is, who methodically rebuilt the Utes to be competitive within the PAC. IMHO, as long as a program has the "right" HC, a move to a different conference can be successful.