Opening weekend for college football is under a month away, and fall camps are in full swing, but last week's conference realignment stole the show.
Friday, the PAC-12 had five schools announce they would leave to join another conference. Washington and Oregon are set to join the Big Ten in 2024 alongside USC and UCLA, who were already set to join the Big Ten in 2024. Arizona, Arizona State and Utah announced that they would be following former PAC-12 school Colorado to the Big 12 in 2024.
With these monumental changes, the PAC-12 is on the verge of dissolving and is left with just four schools: California, Oregon State, Stanford and Washington State.
Alabama head coach Nick Saban was asked during Alabama’s media day on Sunday his thoughts on the recent changes and what the realignment meant to the future of college football.
“There’s a lot of traditions that we’ve had for a long time in college football, and I think we’re in a time of evolution for whatever reason. Some of those traditions are going to get pushed by the wayside,” Saban said. “It’s sad, whether it’s good, bad or indifferent for college football. You have to define what is good and bad for college football.”
Money is by far the dominant reason this wave of realignment has hit college football with conferences like the Big Ten and SEC paying schools upwards of $50 million annually with that number expected to go even higher with the new media rights deals that will begin next year leaving the PAC-12 way behind the other “Power 5” conferences. Friday was the final straw for the five teams that departed from the PAC-12 when the conference could not strike a media deal with its current deal set to expire in 2024.
With all the money being tossed around lately to players with NIL deals and schools through media rights deals, Saban wants to ensure that all decisions are made with the student-athletes' best interests in mind.
"One thing I’d hope we’d keep in mind in all the choices and decisions we make relative to what we do in college athletics is the student-athlete," Saban said. “They’re here to get an education. We try to help them develop careers on and off the field. And hopefully, the choices and decisions we make in college athletics in the future will impact them in a positive way. I hope we can keep that as a priority in terms of whatever we decide to do in the future with college football and college athletics.”
One could argue that the SEC is responsible for starting this recent wave of conference realignment after adding Oklahoma and Texas from the Big 12 beginning in 2024. This domino fall caused other conferences to make their own moves to stay relevant with the best conference in the nation.
Recently, the SEC held meetings that contained heated discussions to figure out the best schedule plan to make every member happy and try to preserve rivalries after the addition of Texas and Oklahoma would bring their total number of teams to 16. Beginning in 2025, under the current deals, the Big Ten will have 18 teams in its league, which could be a scheduling nightmare that stretches across three time zones.
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