RIP Pacified athletic conference

[Viva]

There is no PAC without UCLA

I never realized that lesbian softball was the driving force behind the conference.

[powpig]

20-ish years ago when I was there and we had a good football team under Tedford (Aaron Rodgers, Lynch, and later DeShean Jackson, etc.) that definitely wasn't true for football, but it's certainly shifted in that direction since then and that's why the program went to shit. I never saw many of the big name football players in class, but the top level / Olympic athletes in other sports (water polo, golf, soccer, swimming, etc.) like Natalie Coughlin absolutely were. One year I had a study group where it felt like I was the only one without an Olympic medal - lol... humbling.

Yeah, but none those 3 guys stayed through their senior year & graduated. Each left early for the NFL.
If Rodgers had stayed one more year for 2005, he'd have had Lynch in the backfield and the freshman Jackson to throw to, maybe they could have achieved the unachievable.
Or maybe he'd have had his knee folded and never won a Super Bowl.
The only thing we know is none of those guys played their senior season at Cal.
That's a bit more common these days (with guys even sitting out bowl games) but it was a lot rarer back then.
Cal didn't get their best and after 8 straight winning seasons under Tedford, they've pretty much never been the same.

[SchralphMacchio]

Then there is the reverse pro move, like when Mark Prior finished his Spoiled Children degree in the offseasons 3 years after being drafted. Or like when I used to see Mosley on campus in 2003 because he was back in school at Cal!

[esseff]

[MultiVerse]

Pac-12 is Bach!

[mcski]

Hold the fuck up, Oxy?!?! Now they are plundering the mighty SCIAC ! This will not stand. When the mighty Sagehens have a winning record vs fUCLA, i guess the pac10/12 has to take its sloppy seconds from SCIAC as well

[The AD]

You know how there used to be the "Power Five Conferences?" I guess the Pac-X is now one of the powerless conferences.

[californiagrown]

20-ish years ago when I was there and we had a good football team under Tedford (Aaron Rodgers, Lynch, and later DeShean Jackson, etc.) that definitely wasn't true for football, but it's certainly shifted in that direction since then and that's why the program went to shit. I never saw many of the big name football players in class, but the top level / Olympic athletes in other sports (water polo, golf, soccer, swimming, etc.) like Natalie Coughlin absolutely were. One year I had a study group where it felt like I was the only one without an Olympic medal - lol... humbling.

Stanford is even crazier. Only 7800 undergrads compared to 32500 for Cal. And Stanford had 57 olympians (12 current students) at the last summer games. 11.5% of the Stanford student body plays a D1 sport. Thats fucking crazy.

[SchralphMacchio]

Hold the fuck up, Oxy?!?! Now they are plundering the mighty SCIAC ! This will not stand. When the mighty Sagehens have a winning vs fucla, i guess the pac10/12 has to take its sloppy seconds from SCIAC as well

Sagehens cower under the might of Occidental Tigers.

Io Triumphe!!!!!!! ('2001)

At least the Whitter Poets didn't make this sad parody.

[The AD]

Where's Claremont Mudd Scripps? These seem like teams that even Wazzu can defeat consistently.

[californiagrown]

Where's Claremont Mudd Scripps? These seem like teams that even Wazzu can defeat consistently.

Our teams can find a way to Coug anything. Its a lifestyle.


This whole thing sucks. There are no more major conferences in 2 of the 4 timezones. It totally and completely fucks over the student athletes on the west coast who play more than 1 game per week. If this was all about football TV rights, why couldnt these schools have just joined the new conferences in football only and left the PAC 12 untouched for all other sports?


Why wouldnt it have made more sense to create conferences and TV deals specific to football, and then leave the current conferences as-is for all other sports?

[BmillsSkier]

Why wouldnt it have made more sense to create conferences and TV deals specific to football, and then leave the current conferences as-is for all other sports?

I firmly believe this is where D1 collegiate sports is heading. Football, and maybe even basketball, will find a way to break away from the NCAA and be its own entity(ies).


Funny thing was mentioned today, do you know what the most aligned D1 conference has been through all this reshuffling?

The friggin MAC.

That's right, mid-week MACtion has found a way to keep D1 sports rolling in a very unified conference and find a way to get a ABC/ESPN TV deal. I think the key is they're all about the same size, and all a few hundred miles away from eachother. Which just seems like too much common sense anymore.

[half-fast]

MAC teams split $10 million between the 12 teams. SEC and Big 10 are over $50 million per school. ACC is around $30 million per school. Most non revenue sports play mainly weekend games. The schools can afford to fly the teams around the country with that kind of money

[californiagrown]

MAC teams split $10 million between the 12 teams. SEC and Big 10 are over $50 million per school. ACC is around $30 million per school. Most non revenue sports play mainly weekend games. The schools can afford to fly the teams around the country with that kind of money

At a brief glance, softball/baseball are a wed/Thurs and weekend schedule. That's gonna be real rough flying to the East Coast and back twice a week, or alternatively missing wed-fri classes for a full semester. Woof.

[half-fast]

Yeah. I kind of hate all this conference realignment. But a lot of these conferences have pretty big footprints already. It’s not like they’re taking a 3 hour bus ride to away games.

[The AD]

I firmly believe this is where D1 collegiate sports is heading. Football, and maybe even basketball, will find a way to break away from the NCAA and be its own entity(ies).

I think this is what needs to happen. If it doesn't the Olympic sports are eventually history.

[TahoeJ]

Stanford is even crazier. Only 7800 undergrads compared to 32500 for Cal. And Stanford had 57 olympians (12 current students) at the last summer games. 11.5% of the Stanford student body plays a D1 sport. Thats fucking crazy.

Yeah, both schools are pretty wild that way for non football or basketball athletics. Or were. Cal was a bit smaller back then. My aforementioned study group was comprised of 8-10 people and at the end of the day (obviously some of these came later on) collectively there was something like 30-35 Olympic medals (mostly swimming and water polo). Granted, Natalie C had 12 of them on her own. My girlfriend and I really brought down the group average with none!

Anyway, fuck college football.

[BmillsSkier]

The resident ND alum here in the office (old joke, how do you know someone went to ND?) just stopped by to talk realignment and said his sources within the athletic department have let it slip that the full-court press they were trying on the ACC to go after Stanford and Cal is dead.

So, do those schools stick with Oregon St and Washington St and go after Mountain West and various UC system schools or do they say fuck it let OSU and WaSt go their own way and Cal and Stanford to independent?

[old goat]

Yeah, both schools are pretty wild that way for non football or basketball athletics. Or were. Cal was a bit smaller back then. My aforementioned study group was comprised of 8-10 people and at the end of the day (obviously some of these came later on) collectively there was something like 30-35 Olympic medals (mostly swimming and water polo). Granted, Natalie C had 12 of them on her own. My girlfriend and I really brought down the group average with none!

Anyway, fuck college football.

What sux is when some athlete doesn't bother to graduate from Stanford before going pro. That was a spot someone who actually wanted an education could have taken. I'm talking about you Tiger. Maybe if you had taken that senior year class about not boinking cocktail waitresses . . .
Of course that applies to all colleges but especially to the highly selective ones.
How about if you go pro and don't graduate you pay back your scholarship from your pro earnings.
Or better yet, get rid of sports scholarships and for that matter college sports except for intramurals and self funded club teams. (My kid played Ultimate at Cal--the B team)

[The AD]

Stanford athletics has a very high graduation rate, so not sure they're the best example for this.
https://gostanford.com/news/2022/11/...g-success.aspx

Eldrick did pretty well for himself even without that college degree.

And keep in mind those going pro are the outliers. Scholarships are giving many kids a college education who may not have pursued higher education otherwise.

[SchralphMacchio]

Yeah. I kind of hate all this conference realignment. But a lot of these conferences have pretty big footprints already. It’s not like they’re taking a 3 hour bus ride to away games.

Big diff from LAX to SeaTac vs LAX to Newark (or Santa Monica to Linden, since really they can use that big media money to fly via corporate aviation terminals or whatever).

[californiagrown]

Eldrick did pretty well for himself even without that college degree.

not to mention that Stanford's endowment is doing pretty well too... i dont think they need the extra couple hundred thousand from the small handful of athletes that leave early to go pro.

More than NIL or the transfer portal clusterfuck, this latest conference realignment is the death knell of traditional college football and the traditional college culture in america. So many 100yr old rivalry games vanished from the schedule in the last 6months. So many people like myself used our alma mater's away games to travel and visit friends in or near those towns every fall. Gone. This just killed so much of college/alumni/fall culture for so many people. Really sucks.

[SchralphMacchio]

keep in mind those going pro are the outliers.

And yet the conference re alignment and Tv money are set up entirely around the outliers, I think this is the heart of the rant!!!

[old goat]

Maybe it's a coincidence, but the crosswords lately have been using SDSU instead of UCLA for 4 letter socal college.

[SumJongGuy]

South Dakota State University is getting more well known.. They even have a campus in SoCal now??