Whenever college football gets turned on its head due to re-alignment, we immediately become consumed with questions about the new world that has emerged before our eyes. How will two Pacific Northwest powers like Oregon and Washington fit into the Big Ten? How will the “four corner” schools operate in a now 16-team Big 12? But often swept aside as collateral damage are the forgotten institutions. The unfortunate schools who find themselves facing a cloud of uncertainty as they’ve been left behind.
When the Southwest Conference dissolved in 1996, Houston, Rice, SMU, and TCU weren’t lucky enough to receive a life raft into the Big 12, and were banished into obscurity for the foreseeable future. When the original Big East Conference eroded in the early 2010’s, Cincinnati, Temple, UConn, and USF went down with the sinking ship and spent much of the next decade toiling as Group of Five programs in the American Athletic Conference.
With the Pac-12 collapsing this past week, that harsh reality now awaits four institutions in Cal, Oregon State, Stanford, and Washington State.
For arbitrary reasons, these schools weren’t able to follow their peers out the door and are what remains of the now former premier west coast league in college athletics. Staring these schools in the face are a massive drop in media rights revenue, as well as the loss of rivalry games that were forged over the past century. And sure, the two Bay Area schools here could still receive a token invite from the Big Ten with a severely discounted share of media rights money. But even that seems like a stretch at this point. A possible merger with the Mountain West Conference is the likeliest outcome for these four as they navigate their new reality.
Let’s try to take a look at where each of these institutions stand and what may be in store for them in the future.
Cal
Out of the four schools that got left in the smoldering ruins of the Pac-12, Cal may be in for the biggest world of hurt moving forward. The athletics department has had massive debt due to the renovations of Memorial Stadium from a decade ago and this debt has cut into reported surpluses. That will not be helped by a significant drop in television revenue the department will experience, barring the Big Ten offering them a lifeline.
What also doesn’t help is the fan apathy brought about by poor performances across multiple sports. Cal was the only school in the league that failed to win a conference championship in any team sport last year, and the 3-29 men’s basketball team was the worst power conference program in the country. The football program has only gone bowling just three times since 2012 and the cruel irony is that the renovated Memorial Stadium sits half empty for most contests. Cal athletics would still have a rivalry with Stanford to look forward to on its sports calendars should they stay tied at the hip. However, losing the likes of UCLA, USC, and other Pac-12 rivals will only create even more fan apathy towards their product, perpetuating the cycle of declining attendance/revenues. Things could get bleak in Berkeley, CA, quickly.
Oregon State
Oregon State had one of the smaller student populations of the public universities in the Pac-12 and it’s lack of status as a “national brand” in college athletics is why the Beavers were left on the sinking ship. For years, OSU has been overshadowed by rival Oregon in national prestige and the Ducks were fortunate enough to land themselves a spot in the Big Ten. While there are already efforts to keep the rivalry formerly known as the civil war alive in the coming years, OSU will still be left to fend for themselves.
Oregon State will most likely be a part of a proposed merger with the Mountain West Conference and there’s a good chance that the school could find instant success in the league. The football program has trended up under the leadership of head coach Jonathan Smith in recent years and the baseball program already stands among the nation’s elite. Similar to Cal, however, the school will be paying off debt created by recent renovations to Reser Stadium for years to come and the massive drop in television revenue they are about to experience will make that even more difficult. That revenue decrease will also affect their ability to hire/retain successful coaches like Smith as coaching salaries continue to go up. Tread carefully Beavers.
Stanford
A true indictment of how off the rails realignment has gotten is that Stanford, the prestigious academic institution that literally wins the award for best athletic department almost every year, now stares at uncertainty because of the Pac-12’s collapse.
As mentioned before, Stanford could very well still receive an invite from the Big Ten at a discounted rate, but its bonafides should’ve made it a top priority from the very beginning. It’s status as an elite academic institution makes it a national brand and it boasts the fourth-largest endowment in the entire country. The school could decide to park all of its athletics in a new merged Pac-MWC league, or it could take a page out of rival Notre Dame and go independent in football. That would allow for the school to curate its own schedule and potentially maintain rivalries with Cal, Notre Dame, UCLA, and USC, but it would have to strike a deal with a network to carry these games.
Out of the four schools left behind, Stanford seems to have the most agency and brightest future prospects coming out of this mess. It’s all up to the Cardinal brass to put themselves in a favorable position.
Washington State
Washington State has one of the most passionate fanbases in college football and that’s evidenced by Ol’ Crimson appearing on every single episode of ESPN’s College Gameday. Unfortunately for the Cougars, a land-grant university in remote Pullman, WA, doesn’t lend itself to being a “national brand” in the eyes of television executives, which is why Wazzu also went down with the sinking ship.
Similar to Oregon State, Wazzu has been discarded in favor of its more high profile rival in Washington and will most likely end up in a proposed Pac-MWC merger. While this would be a step down for the Cougars from where they were in the Pac-12, they could actually thrive in this new environment. The football program has been consistently bowl eligible over the past decade and it’d walk into the new league with one of the more talented rosters. Sitting just over five hours away, Boise State would be one of their strongest league competitors and a burgeoning rivalry with the Broncos could stoke their competitive fire while they figure out the future of the Apple Cup.
Aforementioned programs like Cincinnati, Houston, and TCU managed to successfully build themselves back up after their respective conferences fell apart and eventually made it back to the status of a power league. It might take several years of will, determination, and some luck to pull it off, but Wazzu has an opportunity to do the same.