The Pac-12’s final football game – a 34–31 UW victory over rival Oregon – ended at 8:46 p.m., less than two hours after the end-zone art had already been taken down, removed and was replaced. The confetti had been cleaned up. Boise State and UNLV would meet the next night in the Mountain West Championship Game at the same stadium. The last stand of a dying convention was inadvertently erased, a masterpiece based on an HA sketch.
Las Vegas has no allegiance. It is a ruthless money making machine.
Sound familiar?
As the 2024 season approaches, college football has been reshaped beyond recognition, as conference realignment has ravaged rivalries. A game of media-rights “musical chairs” left two schools standing after the song stopped suddenly.
For better or worse, this is the new normal for college football. The past cannot be recovered. Eight months after Allegiant Stadium hosted the Pac-12’s football finale, its most vocal rival planted a flag over the ashes.
“Being in Vegas is extremely important to us,” Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark said while hosting his conference’s media days at Allegiant Stadium this week. “Even before last year’s restructuring I said we needed to stay in Vegas and a little further west. It is currently the entertainment and sports capital of the world. “So being here is extremely important to our brand and our business.”
In college football’s new normal, business is booming. The Big 12 arrived this week with an air of pomp — with showgirls posing for photos on the field in glittery headdresses; The convention’s new mascot cruises the strip in a Chevelle convertible driven by an Elvis impersonator; Yormark declared: “I won’t stop until we become the No. 1 conference in America.”
To do this, they robbed the Pac-12 of four programs – Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah. And though the SEC and Big Ten remain the dueling dynamos of college football, Yourmark is considering selling the Big 12’s naming rights (hello, Allstate 12!) and partnering with private equity firms to bridge the gap.
In the new normal of college football, success is bought and sold. When asked at Big 12 Media Days why his program’s recruiting has improved recently, Baylor coach Dave Aranda gave SicEm365.com writer Craig Smoak a simple explanation.
“We’re paying the players,” he said.
The same day, Montlake Futures – UW’s NIL collective – launched a “Win Big” campaign, and coach Jedd Fish urged Husky fans to help pay for the players.
“As we all know, and we’ve all read, NIL is a critical aspect of retaining players, recruiting players, and most importantly, winning championships,” Fish said in a video message. “We know we have one of the greatest programs in all of college football, and we know we have one of the greatest programs in all of college football. What we need to do is we need to continue to bring the best athletes to the University of Washington.
“It will take you and your support for Montlake Futures. It will take your gifts, it will take your donations, and it will take your memberships so that we can bring in the best players that will help us win on Saturday and throughout December and January as we head into this conference. It is one of the best, if not the best, in the world.”
In college football’s new normal, the B1G logo resides between the 20- and 30-yard lines inside Husky Stadium. UW will play conference road games at Rutgers, Iowa, Indiana and Penn State this fall. The Apple Cup will be streamed on Peacock on September 14 and will be played at Lumen Field.
Oh, and speaking of which: Coggs is co-captaining the ghost ship of a convention that’s orphaned by the bottom line. Following the Big 12’s attack on Allegiant Stadium on Wednesday, Washington State and Oregon State held a more modest media event – ”After Hours with the Beavs and Cougs” at the Bellagio. In place of the preseason all-league list, it featured Butch T. Cougar in a red blazer and a bare midriff… along with an open bar.
According to a column by John Canzano, Pac-12 Commissioner Teresa Gould said, “If anyone has earned the right to drink, it’s the Pac-12.”
College football’s new normal isn’t for everyone. It’s an increasingly unsatisfactory venture, one that no one ever wanted, with Utah traveling to Central Florida for the Big 12 finale on Nov. 29. Where rivalry and regionalism are exchanged for revenue. Where Fox and ESPN are left to shake up the HA sketch, we scrapped everything we knew.
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