ROSEMONT, Ill. — For now it appears the dust has settled on what became a permanent alteration of the college athletics landscape, culminating in the destruction of the Pac-12 conference at the hands of the Big Ten and the Big 12.
The Big Ten added USC and UCLA last June and now has added Oregon and Washington as well, while the Big 12 took the four corner schools in Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and Arizona State.
Stanford and Cal have worked hard to try to secure a new home, but were rebuffed by the Big Ten, a move Locked on Big 10 host Craig Shemon is not surprised by - although he doesn't think the conference is going to stay at 18 schools for long.
"I think the Big Ten wants to go to 20, and that's why they didn't take Stanford and Cal even though a lot of the school presidents wanted them," Shemon said. "They wanted to keep that open real estate in case they got a better team. And you look at those football-centric teams in the ACC like Clemson and Florida State, they are looking at the math...and they want a piece of that action."
The ACC's media deal is locked in through 2036, and schools like Florida State and Clemson are realizing they are going to be roughly $400 million behind the schools in the Big Ten, including Rutgers and Northwestern, and they are looking for a way out.
Getting out of the ACC's deal is no easy task, and it will require lawyers to fight the Grant of Rights deal already in place, but it makes sense for the Big Ten to stand pat at 18 schools in the hopes of adding Clemson and Florida State - two premier football brands that would give the conference a media footprint in the south.
As for Stanford and Cal, they also attempted to get into the ACC and were shot down, leaving them in a very precarious position alongside fellow Pac-12 outcasts Oregon State and Washington State.