Ohio State Football: The Big Ten killed the Pac-12

The Ohio State football team will have two new foes next season in USC and UCLA. Both of them are from the Pac-12. That bombshell tore through the college football world and showed that conference expansion is not close to being done. More is happening now too.

There are reports that Colorado is about to rejoin the Big 12. They will leave the Pac-12 after being in the conference for about a decade. It’s a move that they are making for their own survival. This is after the Big 12 is losing Texas and Oklahoma next year as well.

It seems that the Big Ten has pretty much killed the Pac-12. Taking USC and UCLA from them has killed any hope of the conference getting a good TV deal. In fact, they still don’t have an updated TV deal for the future. Their current deal expires in 2024 too.

I would seriously doubt that this is the last move from a current member of the Pac-12. Oregon could be the next domino to fall. As for the rest of the conference, we don’t know what they are going to do. Depending on what schools are left, the new TV deal could be really bad.

For the Ohio State football program, adding UCLA and USC was a good thing. It increased their strength of schedule and helped increase the level of the TV deal the Big Ten landed. It ended up being a deal worth about $1 billion. Potentially adding Oregon would increase the value of that too.

I’m very fascinated to see how the rest of this saga plays out. I’m very surprised that it’s the Pac-12 that is imploding instead of the Big 12. After Texas and Oklahoma bolted for the SEC, I was surprised that they were able to survive as a conference.