Story by Alan Snel Photos by J. Tyge O’Donnell
It’s just a little surreal.
The fabled Pac-12 Conference, the Conference of Champions as bicyclist Bill Walton likes to say, has crumbled because of a lack of a lucrative conference media deal and the league’s Last Dance is right here in Las Vegas tonight.
The conference has cooked up one hellacious final tasty meal — one last football championship matching two Top 5 ranked teams, third-ranked Washington and fifth-ranked Oregon at Allegiant Stadium.
It’s an emotional night for the conference. These two teams, the Huskies and Ducks, are joining USC and UCLA for a move to the Big Ten. Four other schools — Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah — are off to the Big 12. And Cal and Standford head east to the ACC.
LVSportsBiz.com spoke with a Cal fan before the Pac-12 championship game and who is not looking forward to Cal playing Pittsburgh, Wake Forest or Pittsburgh in the ACC.
The final season for the Pac-12 has been an outstanding one for the conference’s football teams as eight of the 12 teams won at least six games.
After USC and UCLA bolted for the Big Ten, the Pac-12 leadership could have pitched the idea of adding UNLV in the red-hot Las Vegas market and San Diego State in Southern California to replace the two big brand Los Angeles universities.
Instead, the conference fell apart.
And now the Pac-2 of Washington State and Oregon State will play Mountain West schools to fill out their schedules. The Mountain West issued this statement Friday: