REPORT: Big Ten waiting for PAC-12 to implode to continue expanding west

Conference expansion is at the forefront for Big Ten football heading into the 2023 season. Next fall, Texas and Oklahoma will be joining the SEC conference, while USC and UCLA will be joining the Big Ten conference. With the Pac-12’s top two teams leaving and no plan to add any valuable programs down the road, it appears that the Pac-12 conference is on its way out. New reports suggest that the Big Ten won’t do more damage to the Pac-12 until it is clear that the conference is going under; however, when that happens, there is nothing holding the Big Ten back from taking as much as it wants.

Big Ten conference reportedly waiting for PAC-12 conference to implode before making more moves

The Big Ten conference dealt a significant blow to the PAC-12 last year when it secured USC and UCLA, both of whom will be making the move during the 2024 season. With the departure of these two programs, the PAC-12 will not only lose out on having a national title winner in its history but also face a substantial decline in TV revenue heading into the upcoming year.

Saturday Tradition reports that the Big Ten is interested in adding a few more teams from the PAC-12, a sentiment that seems to be shared by other major conferences. However, the Big Ten appears to have the greatest interest in potentially adding programs like Washington and Oregon in the future. Nevertheless, the conference is currently holding back and waiting for the PAC-12 to fully collapse before making any further moves. The momentum is already in motion, so it seems to be more a matter of “when” rather than “if” these changes will occur.

“Understand this: the Big Ten won’t raid the Pac-12 until it’s abundantly clear the conference already has been mortally wounded,” wrote Matt Hayes of Saturday Tradition. “Those are the clear marching orders from the conference university presidents, a Big Ten athletic director told Saturday Tradition. In other words, the Big Ten won’t be the reason the Pac-12 falls apart. But it will pick up pieces if/when it does.”

Additionally, the Big Ten has identified five top programs from the PAC-12 that it would be particularly interested in adding: Stanford, Cal, Oregon, Utah, and Washington. While schools like Stanford and California may not be as highly sought-after in terms of their athletic performance, their prestigious academic reputation and strong Olympic sports programs make them enticing for the conference.

It is widely believed that the PAC-12 conference will inevitably collapse in the coming years. Once that happens, the Big Ten will be poised to make its move and continue expanding westward. The conference is strategically positioning itself to take advantage of the situation and capitalize on the opportunities that arise from the PAC-12’s demise.

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