Pedley's Ponderings

I love college football. Specifically, I love the stupidity of it.

I love watching a PAC-12 game at 1 a.m. on Sunday morning. I love that Iowa can win a football game 7-3 with two safeties and a field goal. I love watching Kansas beat Texas in overtime on a two-point conversion. I love watching a pointless game between Western Michigan and Central Michigan on a Wednesday night during a blizzard. It’s all so beautifully stupid.

Last week, however, things became the bad kind of stupid.

The PAC-12 collapsed in a day when Utah, Arizona and Arizona State announced they were following Colorado to the Big 12. Oregon and Washington followed suit to the Big 10, while Cal, Stanford, Oregon State and Washington State were left wondering what happened. Century-long PAC members USC and UCLA already said they were leaving for greener pastures last year. In this case the greenery isn’t grass, but rather money.

The PAC, founded in 1915, is dead. The Big 10 now has 18 teams while the Big 12 has 16 (for now). My 4-year-old daughter even knows those numbers don’t mesh.

Since I’m not a TV executive counting dollars and TV screens, coast-to-coast conferences make zero sense to me. Nobody in the history of planet Earth has ever pined for a Rutgers-UCLA “Big 10” matchup that kicks off at 9:30 p.m., Central Standard Time. Likewise, few people have ever wondered what it would be like if West Virginia and BYU were in the same conference. Nonetheless, we are here.

All this change has been driven by money of course. Schools in big-time college conferences derive massive amounts of revenue from media contracts to broadcast their games. The PAC-12 was failing to secure its next TV deal, which led to last week’s monumental collapse. Conversely, schools like Iowa in the Big 10 are safe thanks to the dozens of millions of dollars they collect each year from being in a well-branded league with desirable broadcast rights. Everyone wants that type of cash, hence last week’s massive earthquake.

None of this really benefits the average football fan. We obviously see none of this money, and it’s only university athletic departments whose coffers get lined thick with revenue from these huge media deals. Accordingly, it’s important to point the blame where it’s due for the PAC-12’s collapse: ESPN, CBS, Fox and the like who pen these contracts. They’re the tail wagging the dog.

It’s sad. College sports are beloved for regional conference rivalries that have been forged for the better part of a century – Oregon and Oregon State have the Civil War while Oklahoma and Oklahoma State have Bedlam. Historic matchups like those are jeopardized in the modern age of Massive Money College Football. I’m aware most conference shakeups have been driven by big money in the last 50 years, but good Lord.

It’s all so stupid to me. I guess I’m fortunate to be committed to the Hawkeyes, who are in the Big 10 and sitting safe and sound for now. Still, I never wanted Maryland or Rutgers with us; and I never imagined USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington would be in our league. The Big 10 should have just annexed the PAC-12 wholesale and called it the New Big 10 West.

All I can really do is shrug my shoulders – after all, I’ll still tune in to watch this garbage. I sort of hate that, but there’s nothing I can do.

While last week’s shake-up brings “stability” to schools in new conference homes, there’s still massive amounts of uncertainty for those left holding the short end of the stick. Personally, I’m exhausted by it all and tired of hearing “what-if” scenarios trotted out by talking heads from coast to coast. In turn, I’ll be tuning out for the next few weeks prior to kick off weekend.

But once that ball kicks, you can guarantee my eyes will be peeled to the TV to watch stupid matchup after stupid matchup. I guess these TV execs know a sucker when they see one.

Nick Pedley is the news editor and ad manager of The Hartley Sentinel-The Everly/Royal News.