College sports will never be the same after the demise of the Pac-12

The final weekend of the college football regular season was full of drama and suspense, rivalry games and the highest stakes.

Still, it was all pretty depressing from a West Coast perspective as the Pac-12 implosion became final.

There was a serious disconnect when I heard all the flowery language about tradition and heritage while knowing that none of it really meant anything. Not when Bill Walton’s “conference of champions” can be blown up so easily.

The conference, which was born in 1915, took its last regular season breath late Saturday night at 108 years old. Oh, there’s going to be some weird, bastardized version of “Pac-something,” with Oregon State and Washington State lagging behind.

But it will never be the same. College sports won’t be the same.

It was fitting that the end came in Cal’s surprise upset of UCLA in the iconic Rose Bowl — the place every Pac-12 team has ever dreamed of reaching — at an hour when most of the decision-makers in the college football world football, they were already asleep.

Over the years, the Pac-12 After Dark has been an example of right and wrong in college football. The time slot produced some extremely entertaining games that were mostly ignored by the rest of college football. And those same games were used against West Coast schools because attendance was often not great, because who wants to go to a college football game at 7:30 in the evening without a glorious fall day in line? It was all part of breaking with and rejecting tradition.

It was also fitting that Cal embarrassed UCLA in their 90th and final meeting as siblings and conference rivals. After all, it was UCLA — more than any other school — that blew up the Pac-12. The Bruins played lap dog with cross-town rival USC, joining forces to run with the Trojans for Big Ten riches. It’s one thing for a private school, USC, to make such a move thinking only of its own fame and position. But UCLA is a state university tied to Cal by tradition, the same governing body and the same tax dollars. Their two football coaches are, unfortunately, the highest paid public servants in the state of California. They are supposed to represent something different.

Dumping Cal without a second thought was treacherous, so it only seemed right to see the Bruins get embarrassed on their home court in their final meeting with Cal until the random scheduling gods found room for a one-time West Coast college staple football to be played again.

My first college football game was UCLA-Cal, sitting on the Cal sideline with my Cal alumni parents. My first college football game as a student was a UCLA-Cal game sitting in the UCLA student section. So yeah, I’m a little bitter.

The ESPN broadcast was full of bittersweet moments. Dave Fleming and Brock Osweiler, both Pac-12 products, still seemed in disbelief that the end was actually coming, the same way most of us feel. ESPN aired a sentimental segment about the conference that felt like an obituary, complete with glamorous photos of Rose Bowl and Heisman Trophy winners and the world’s most beautiful college environments.

And more than one observer pointed out on social media that the whole thing was ironic, because it was the battle and missteps over broadcast rights that ended the Pac-12. “No one wants the Pac-12 to end,” … said a network that could have saved it,” posted John Canzano, one of the journalists who has reported the most news about the conference’s demise.

That this has been a great year for Pac-12 football has been emphasized time and time again. Deion Sanders’ Colorado team captured the nation’s imagination early before fading. USC’s face is undeniable despite the presence of 2022 Heisman winner Caleb Williams. Two top-six teams will face off in the final Pac-12 conference championship game: undefeated Washington and 11-1 Oregon, hoping for a spot in the College Football Playoff.

But the Pac-12 was never just about football, and that’s the real insult in all of this. Disbanding the conference destroys one of the historic conferences for women’s basketball, men’s basketball, women’s soccer, baseball, volleyball, softball, water polo and many other sports. Schools that created their own real and true rivalries will now be spread across the Big Ten, ACC and Big 12.

Stanford women’s soccer will return to ACC country this week to play in the College Cup in Cary, North Carolina. The Cardinal will face BYU — which came back from a three-goal deficit to beat North Carolina, preventing a matchup with Tar Heels coach Anson Dorrance, who welcomed Cal and Stanford to the ACC with the pleasant thought that he hopes their football programs ” to die on the vine’. If the Cardinal gets past BYU, they will face an ACC team in the final, either Clemson or Florida State. New conference rivalries will begin.

But the value of college sports is legacy and connection. To connect generations and share collective knowledge. On the “tradition” that was extolled in college football’s final weekend.

Here in the West, such words rang hollow.

Contact Ann Killion: [email protected]; Twitter: @annkillion