USC and UCLA announced that they would be joining the BIG 10 in June of last year. Colorado announced that they’d be joining the BIG 12 a week ago. In the past 48 hours, rumors have turned to definitives with Oregon and Washington heading to the BIG 10, as Arizona, Arizona State, and Utah head to the BIG 12.
Needless to say, nobody is more disappointed than Bill Walton.
Pac 12uh…what happeneduh???
Thank you, James Droz. We at A2Z Sports can’t wait for more content to come this football season.
Now, back to what the future may be for the Conference of Champions. Only four teams remain in the west coast conference as it stands now. Stanford, Cal, Washington State, and Oregon State are the last schools standing, and as it looks now, they will most likely leave the Pac 12.
The Big 10 now consists of 18 schools (might be time to rename the conference), and the moves they’ve made have surely been to compete with the SEC. It’s wild that USC will now face Michigan and Ohio State every year, and while others are disappointed that classic rivalries are lost with this merger, there is definitely upside to the situation.
BOULDER FOOTBALL PREDICTIONS
As a Colorado Boulder student, I couldn’t be happier about the move. Our programs are on the rise, and this switch of divisions gives us more attention even if Deion leaves.
Speaking of Deion, I’m shocked I haven’t spoken about it yet on this blog. It was announced that he’d be coming to Colorado last fall, which was before this blog was started, so I’ve been waiting for the right time to break the ice. First, let me walk you through my history with the Buffaloes, and then I’ll say where I think they are headed this year.
I’m from Boston, but I’ve gone to school and had the student pass for the past three years, and for every home game, the student section has been packed for the first half (that is, until we got blown out by the end of the third quarter). I left Folsom field each game wondering how we failed at recruiting year after year. We have one of the best campuses in the world, with stadiums and facilities in the top tier of collegiate sports, along with a prime location (and may I say beautiful Women). It seemed that with any momentum, our program would erupt into a top spot for recruits. When Deion announced that he’d be leaving Jackson State, we joked that he would come to Colorado. Little did we know that he’d answer our prayers, burn down our whole roster and coaching staff, and embark on the most ambitious rebuild since the changing of transfer rules and the start of NIL deals. This is exactly what we needed, and I couldn’t ask for more for my senior year.
Vegas has our over under for wins this season at +/- 7.5, and college football “experts” predict us to finish last in the Pac 12. If I’d hammer any future for football (college or NFL) for this fall, it would be this win total. We open our season with an away game at last year’s championship runner ups, TCU, and I fully expect this game to dictate the path of our season. If we win, our hype will be certified. However, this would put us in the national spotlight for the whole season, which may not be a good thing. However, our coach isn’t nicknamed “Primetime” by mistake. Nobody knows how to flourish under mass attention like this man, and I fully trust in him to educate our players on how to deal with all eyes on them.
I’m sure more news on this will arise in the coming weeks, so take this short post as a predecessor to a longer format analysis of the entire Pac 12 situation.