Big 12 Football: 3 schools that could be added as the PAC-12 realigns
Massive news arrived for the PAC-12 concerning conference realignment this week, which continues this expansion conversation after Big 12 football was rocked last year. With the news coming out on June 30 that the USC Trojans and UCLA Bruins “are planning to leave for the Big Ten as early as 2024”, the PAC-12 will be left without two of the biggest brand names in the conference in the near future.
This also doesn’t leave the PAC-12 all that much time to assess the news and come up with a just reaction to not feel the worst of the impact of USC and UCLA leaving for the Big Ten. But it’s hard to see how the PAC-12 can fully recover from this news, even to the degree that the Big 12 was able to last year in that round of the conference realignment conversation.
Moreover, the news that USC and UCLA are planning to leave the PAC-12 for the Big Ten by 2024 came courtesy of Jon Wilner (also confirmed by multiple other sources) on Twitter on June 30. Ross Dellenger of Sports Illustrated was one of the first to confirm the reports.
How could the Big 12 football conference take advantage of the news coming out of the PAC-12?
Source: USC and UCLA are planning to leave for the Big Ten as early as 2024. Move *has not been finalized* at the highest levels of power.
— Jon Wilner (@wilnerhotline) June 30, 2022
USC & UCLA’s deal with the Big Ten could be done in a matter of days/hours, sources tell @SINow. It is down the line. B1G is prepared for an announcement.
— Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) June 30, 2022
Target year 2024.
The schools expressed interest to B1G several months ago. Negotiations escalated over the last few weeks.
This brings up an eerily similar conversation to what the Texas Longhorns and Oklahoma Sooners sparked last summer when those schools announced their intentions to leave the Big 12 for the SEC by 2025. And maybe this will serve as the opportunity the Big 12 was looking for to really get some strength back in this round of conference realignment.
With that in mind, here’s a look at three PAC-12 schools that the Big 12 could target if that conference starts to fizzle out in the wake of the news that USC and UCLA are leaving for the Big Ten.