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Message: <blockquote data-quote="WVUALLEN" data-source="post: 131390089" data-attributes="member: 1112294"><a href="https://247sports.com/college/usc/Article/Lifeline-to-the-Pac-12-from-the-Big-12-129549028/">https://247sports.com/college/usc/Article/Lifeline-to-the-Pac-12-from-the-Big-12-129549028/</a>Lifeline to the Pac-12 . . . from the Big 12?Has it really come to this? The once high and mighty Pac-12, the conference that almost ended the Big 12 when it extended bids to Texas and Oklahoma back in 2011, now may need a lifeline of its own?From the Big 12?It looks like that could be the case if a plan hatched by a pair of current and past Big 12 presidents has any currency as revealed by the Bay Area News Group's Jon Wilner.But how can this be? How could a conference that barely survived less than five years ago, a conference without a championship football game until this past season, a conference whose home towns are Ames, Iowa; Lubbock and Waco, Tex.; Lawrence and Manhattan (The Little Apple), Kan.; Morgantown, W. Va. and Norman and Stillwater, Okla. be in position to be offering the urban, coastal elite Pac-12.Only Austin (No. 39) and Ft. Worth, Tex. (No. 5 along with Dallas) are among the top 39 TV markets in America. Give them Kansas City (No. 33) and that's three of the top 39.Compare that to the Pac-12. LA is the No. 2 national TV market, San Francisco-Oakland is No. 8, Phoenix No. 11, Seattle-Tacoma No. 12, Denver No. 17, Sacramento No. 20, Portland No. 22, San Diego No. 29 and Salt Lake City No. 30.Advantage Pac-12 with 10 TV markets ranked above the No. 2 Big 12 market. And yet, it's the Big 12 throwing a lifeline to the Pac-12. Here's how.As reported by Wilner, former Kansas State president Jon Wefald and current West Virginia president Gordon Gee have come up with a plan to bring the two conferences together, a plan that will help both but primarily their own league in its upward mobility.Like the way a team like Texas is amping up its California recruiting. There's blood in the water. The Pac-12, led by USC, is in distress. Maybe we can throw them a life preserver while moving into their territory, the Big 12 seems to be saying.The network-less Big 12 has already passed the Pac-12 for the No. 4 spot in the Power Five conferences so it's not exactly clear why they want to help other than to expand their market from the Midlands to the Coast.Here's their idea. They'd like to see the two leagues come up with an exclusive shared scheduling agreement so that all nonconference football games by all the teams in both leagues would be against teams from the other leagues. No more non-Power-Five games, and except for the ones with long-running relationships like USC-Notre Dame and Stanford-Notre Dame that would be grandfathered in, no other leagues.Then the two conferences' champions would meet in a championship game that would almost certainly set the winner up for a spot in the College Football Playoffs.“My first idea was to figure out a strategy to convince Arizona and Arizona State to become the 11th and 12th members of the Big 12,” Wefald told Wilner. “I rather quickly dismissed that idea.” But then he had another and came up with “A Proposal to Create A Strategic Alliance Between The Big 12 And The Pac-12.”Wilner quotes Wefald: “This alliance of 22 universities from the Great Plains to the West Coast would provide the vital content of big-time football games that dovetail nicely with the new developing platforms of information.”It's an idea that while not official has apparently been talked about at the highest levels of the Big 12 -- the presidents and commissioner. But it's not an official proposal. Not yet, anyway.But to think it's coming from a league that now pays its members more than $36 million a year -- an 18 percent increase -- that becomes more than $40 million when the third-tier media rights of each are counted in since Big 12 schools are allowed to keep those but not the Pac-12, which distributes just over $31 million per school.And despite those increases and the fact that the Big 12 has passed the Pac-12 into the third place among Power Five leagues, Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby's annual salary of $3.05 million pales in comparison to the annual $4.8 million of Pac-12 commissioner/network boss Larry Scott. Now looking at this from a USC point of view, we're not sure that games against Iowa State and Kansas would be any more attractive than Fresno State and BYU for this season. Actiually, they wouldn't. And for a program like USC that's played everybody everywhere over the years, it would be a come-down. USC doesn't need a league agreement to play an all-Power-Five schedule. It always has. Always will, we'd guess.However anything beats the Pac-12 championship game that has yet to help anyone that we can recall.But for the Big 12 teams that would get to come to the West Coast and play and recruit, it's not a bad deal. Another not-so-good deal from USC's point of view: The plan would alternate championship games between the Rose Bowl and AT&T Stadium in Texas.Guess the renovated Coliseum didn't make the cut while UCLA's home field did. Although we're guessing by the time this could ever be worked out, the new Rams stadium or the Raiders home in Las Vegas would be the way they'd go.And yet there's no way this can work as proposed. The math doesn't work. For all the teams that absolutely have to have seven home games, this would be a no-go deal on both ends. If it happens, it would only be in a limited fashion with some cooperative scheduling. If it could get more visits from Oklahoma and Texas, that would be a good thing.Maybe the way to go here is for an agreement for a season-opening game like the ones in Arlington and Atlanta hosted in the new stadiums in LA and Las Vegas between the two conferences.But for a USC program, playing and acting like USC, this wouldn't be that much of a help. USC should dominate the Pac-12 if only it would. And should use that dominance to get to the College Football Playoffs most years. That's a fact. USC football done right doesn't leave much room for a serious challenge in the Pac-12.What's interesting here -- and sad  -- is how it's the bumbling Pac-12 that has lost any sort of ability to lead. Any sort of idea that it has to lead -- for itself and for college football. The League of Champions looks more like the League of Chumps. At least in the sport that matters.Pac-12 football has so many problems, from officiating to competitiveness to protecting its home turf in recruiting to fan interest that it has no time to worry about innovating when it can barely compete.There was a day when USC would step in and lead. When USC could step in and lead.But here we are with a USC program that is having trouble fixing itself much less its own league . . .  and much less challenging the nation.So we see proposals coming from places where USC once represented the pinnacle of college football -- even to the likes of Oklahoma and Texas.And now they're getting a helping hand extended from the Big 12?Not good. Not good at all.</blockquote>

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