At some point, I will no longer be on this earth. That’s why I try to live my life to the fullest as often as humanly possible. As the great George Strait said, “I ain’t here for a long time, I’m here for a good time.”
I don’t know when my time will be up, but when it is, I like to think that I will have had a good run.
While I may not know when I will go, sometimes people can see it coming from a mile away. Take a look at the Pac-12, for example. This past weekend, two teams (Oregon and Oregon State) left in the NCAA Baseball Super Regionals, and they were the conference’s only hope of continuing.
But Oregon gout bounced by Texas A&M early Sunday evening, which left only Oregon State. The Beavers were already down 1-0 to Kentucky and needed to win two straight to advance to the College World Series. Well, that didn’t happen as the Wildcats took down the Beavers 3-2.
And at 12:33 a.m. ET, the Pac-12 Conference was officially dead.
In just a matter of weeks, the Conference of Champions will reduce from 12 teams to two. Oregon, Washinton, USC, and UCLA will join the Big Ten, while Colorado, Arizona, Arizona State, and Utah will join the Big 12, and Cal and Stanford will jump ship to the ACC.
By the time August arrives, the only two schools left will be Oregon State and Washinton State. Neither one of those schools deserves to be left behind like some piece of garbage, but I understand that college athletics is more about business now than anything else.
If there is a positive to take away from this, it is that the Big 12 is going to be one of the conferences that benefits from the Pac-12’s downfall. Without those four new schools, the Big 12 wouldn’t be nearly as stable as it is today. Simply put, their loss is our gain.
As excited as I am for the future of the Big 12, I do worry about college athletics as a whole moving forward. Rivalries are slowly going away as conferences are no longer regional. Instead, they are going national.
Of course, all of this comes at a price. No more “Pac-12 After Dark,” Bill Walton calling basketball games (R.I.P.), and no more Pac-12 teams in the Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day. Those are just some of the things that will fade away and get lost in time.
While the Pac-12 may not technically be dead, the spirit of it will be. The conference will be reborn at some point, but it will never be close to what it once was.
I am not here to piss on their grave or toss their ashes. I am here to say goodbye. While I may not have been the biggest fan of the conference, college football will not be the same without it.
