It wasn’t long after Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff bemoaned the lack of collegiality in college sports recently that he made about the least collegial remark you’ll ever hear from someone in his position.
Asked about his new Big 12 counterpart Brett Yormark’s line a couple weeks ago that his league was “open for business” in expansion — perceived, perhaps, as a signal flare at antsy Pac 12 schools in the wake of Southern California’s and UCLA’s departure to the Big Ten — Kliavkoff shot back with the only line that will be remembered from Pac-12 media days.
“We appreciate that,” he said. “We have not decided whether we’re going shopping there or not.”
Kliavkoff later acknowledged it was a comment made out of frustration, given how tenuous a position the Pac-12 has been in since the shocking news that the league’s anchor members in Los Angeles were on their way out. Are the remaining Pac-12 schools strong enough to stay together? Do Oregon and Washington have any path to follow USC and UCLA to the Big Ten? Will the so-called Four Corners schools — Colorado, Utah, Arizona and Arizona State — seek more stable refuge in the Big 12, or might the Pac 12 have a way to lure current Big 12 members west?
At this moment, even Kliavkoff can’t reliably predict what’s to come. He’s got a group of presidents who are talking about solidarity in conference meetings but looking at options in private. He’s got a Big 12 that feels newly emboldened to recruit his members. And at least on the surface, he doesn’t seem to have an expansion move that will replace what left with USC and UCLA.
“I’ve been spending four weeks trying to defend against grenades that have been lobbed in from every corner of the Big 12 trying to destabilize our remaining conference,” Kliavkoff said. “I understand why they’re doing it, when you look at the relative media value between the conferences. I get it, I get why they’re scared, why they’re trying to destabilize it. I was just tired of that.”
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