The roars of laughter upon reading the title of this story were surely deafening. I get it: Vanderbilt? Vanderbilt? The punching bag of the SEC? To the Pac-12? That’s how the Pac-12 solves its problems? On its face, it really does sound absurd. Add to that the fact that Vanderbilt would give up SEC television money for the comparative bread crumbs the Pac-12 could offer. It’s ridiculous.
And yet, was Lincoln Riley to USC viewed as normal and obvious and predictable? What about Brian Kelly to LSU? What about USC and UCLA moving to the Big Ten? Were those obvious moves? We’re going to see some wild plot twists in the near future as well.
What’s one more crazy chess move?
First things first: George Kliavkoff has to make Oregon and Washington a sales pitch which convinces them that if the Big Ten isn’t immediately sold on them, they can and should stay in the Pac-12 and not think about going to the Big 12, whose football brand is not great but is better than the Pac-12’s package.
If Oregon and Washington do leave for the Big Ten, however, then Kliavkoff will have to be creative in saving the Pac-12. If he wants the conference to exist at all, in any form (and thereby save his job), he will have to invite schools which industry experts believe are not a great fit for the conference.
San Diego State is one example. We wrote about this the other day:
As we return to the central focus of this piece, would Vanderbilt give the Pac-12 more value and a better institutional fit than San Diego State or Boise State or other schools which more obviously and immediately emerge in expansion conversations?
It’s not that hard to make the case for the Commodores.
Stanford and Cal-Berkeley would welcome a school with Vanderbilt’s academic prestige. Vanderbilt’s excellence in baseball and tennis would give the Pac-12 a boost in non-revenue sports and beef up that identity more than a lot of Mountain West schools would.
Of course no one’s going to run to the…
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