FORT COLLINS — A terrible, horrible, no good, very bad Friday for college sports could, bizarrely, become a winning one for CSU.
The Rams didn’t need a ripple of realignment. They needed absolute chaos.
Two teams leaving the Pac-12 promised nothing as far as the Power 5 pipe dream. Not with San Diego State and (probably) SMU lurking ahead of them in the line for Group of Five replacements.
Cue the Big Ten and Big 12 vultures. Cue the greed. Cue the chaos. The once-proud Pac-12 had been whittled to a Pac-4 by early Saturday morning. And the best advice for the Rams, going forward, from the guy who helped save the Big 12 more than a decade ago?
Merge. Poach. Be aggressive. Offer a hand to the survivors of the NCAA’s latest sinking ship — Stanford, Cal, Oregon State and Washington State — by offering a collective, football-centric vision.
“It would be logical to assume that there should be discussions between the remains of the Pac-12 and the Mountain West,” Chuck Neinas, the Colorado-based former Big 12 and Big Eight commissioner, told me. “Because, to me, the Mountain West is a good conference. It doesn’t have ‘Power 5’ status (but) I would say it’s the best of the Group of Five, especially with the departures from (the AAC) that went to the Big 12.”
Call it Broke Pac Mountain. Call it the Pac-16. Whatever. Do not wait. Do not assume. Do not discriminate.
For years, Pac-12 presidents hemmed and hawed over academics, politics, perceptions and religious affiliations. Look what it got them.
Starting in 2024, the six highest-rated conference champions can punch automatic tickets to a 12-team College Football Playoff. There’s a vacuum now for the fifth-best or sixth-best college football conference in the country, and the buzzards are circling over the ACC next.
“I’d grab (the Pac-12 survivors) and start promoting the (strength of) the Mountain West,” Neinas continued. “’We’ve got Boise. We’ve got Fresno. We’ve got Air Force.’ They’ve got good football teams. My opinion is you get in there and promote the hell out of it and elevate their programs. Make (the merged league) the best of the Group of Five, so they get a spot in the CFP every year.”
Why stop there? Call Tulane. Go get Memphis. Cripes, ring up UTSA and North Dakota State. Look, the TV bubble finally burst. Armageddon’s at the front door. You either play a dumb game that’s getting dumber all the time — or you get the heck out of football altogether.
In this cowardly, soulless new world, to borrow a phrase from our best pal Coach Prime, it’s all about the bag. Rivalries, history and geography don’t matter. Football inventory does.
And, heck yes, it stinks. Like rotten fish. We warned you two years ago that Oklahoma and Texas bolting the Big 12 for the super-sized SEC would pull threads that eventually tore other leagues apart. Florida State is lining up the legal eagles to break away from the ACC, and Clemson isn’t far behind. The Power 5 will soon be a Power 3. And from a revenue standpoint, the real power belongs to only two bodies, anyway — the SEC and Big Ten. Everybody else is jockeying for scraps.
“A big tide raises all ships,” Neinas said. “I’d embellish the Mountain West by adding the four (remaining) Pac-12 members. That makes that conference better.”
Wealthier, too. Current Mountain West members are each expected to pocket roughly $3.2 million in football broadcast revenue in 2023-24, with the exception of Hawaii, which gets less, and Boise, which rakes in about $2 million more.
In its 2021-22 finances report to the NCAA, CSU listed $2.4 million in football broadcast rights revenue. CU listed $14.7 million.
If all this chaos helps the Rams cut into that $12 million gap, that’s a win for FoCo. But could a Pac-Mountain merger add up to $2 million or $3 million more per year for the bigger fish in the Mountain West?
“Well, unless you’re going to Apple,” Neinas replied with a laugh.
Touché, Chuck.
Ouch, but touché.
“If I were commissioner of the Mountain West, I would say, ‘This is a chance for us all to elevate our programs,’” Neinas said. “But I do think Cal and Stanford will (go) independent. The bottom line is, you don’t want to see the Pac-12 diminished. But let’s face it. It has been.”
If you can beat ‘em, join ‘em. After all, if Little Brothers don’t look out for other Little Brothers during Armageddon, who the heck will?
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