There is much to make of the USC Trojans and UCLA Bruins opting to take their talents out east and join the Big Ten. On3 senior writer/college football analyst Ivan Maisel has an idea of what this could mean for the Pac-12 conference going forward. During a recent interview on Inside Texas with Bobby Burton, the college football expert discussed what is next for the West Coast-based conference. Maisel also dives into whether other conferences will poach from their remaining teams.
“Well, there’s no magic to having 16 (schools),” opened Maisel. “If you can have 14, then you can have 18, you can have 20. It stands to reason that the appeal of a UW (Washington), Stanford, Cal, and Arizona State are three very good-sized metropolitan areas. And you can say the same thing about Salt Lake and Denver. Oregon has the appeal of having a bottomless wallet. So yeah, there are still some schools out there to be plucked.”
Maisel goes on to bring up a very real problem for the Pac-12 conference going forward in recruiting. With UCLA and USC both out of the picture, that leaves them without a school representing arguably the largest market in the nation in Los Angeles, CA and kids coming out of the City of Angels might have a problem with that.
“The thought occurred to me as you were describing them leaving, and what’s left behind is why is anybody in LA going to sign with any of those PAC 12 schools now if they don’t even get to play in LA anymore. I think the ramifications of this are only going to get larger the more we think about it.”
It is no easy way to cut it; the loss of both Los Angeles-based schools may be detrimental to the existence of the Pac 12 conference. In an era of college sports where NIL deals and exposure are just as essential to recruiting, for some, as who their head coach will be, not having the largest market on the West Coast is a problem. And if other schools within the conference believe this is a severe blow to their ability to maximize profits, then the summer of 2022 will be known as the start of the collapse of the Pac 12 conference.
