The final weekend of college football’s regular season was filled with drama, tension, rivalry, and high stakes.
But with the Pac-12’s implosion set in stone, everything looked pretty gloomy from the West Coast vantage point.
There was a profound disconnect when you hear all the flowery language about tradition and heritage, but know that none of it actually means much. This is not the time for Bill Walton’s “Conference of Champions” to be so easily crushed.
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The conference, which was founded in 1915, took its last gasp of the regular season late Saturday night at age 108. Oh, there’s going to be some weird, bastardized “Puck blah” version involving stranded Oregon State and Washington State.
But it’s never the same. College sports will no longer be the same.
Amazing Cal defeats UCLA in the iconic Rose Bowl (a place every Pac-12 team once dreamed of reaching) at a time when most of the college football world’s decision-makers had already finished the game. It was only fitting that the game ended in an upset. Sleeping.
For years, “Pac-12 After Dark” has highlighted the good and the bad in college football. This period produced some very entertaining games that have been largely ignored by other teams in college football. And the same games were played against West Coast schools, which often don’t have big crowds, and without the great fall days of tailgating, the college football games played at 7:30 p.m. Who would want to go see the game? It was all part of tearing up and discarding tradition.
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As conference brothers and rivals, it was only fitting that Cal embarrassed UCLA in their 90th and final meeting. After all, it was UCLA more than any other school that blew up the Pac-12. The Bruins represented crosstown rival USC, joining forces with the Trojans in pursuit of Big Ten riches. It is another thing for USC, a private school, to make such a move thinking only of their own glory and status. But UCLA is a public university, tied through tradition to Cal, has the same governing body, and receives the same tax dollars. Their two football coaches, sadly, are the highest paid public servants in California. They should represent something different.
Abandoning Cal without a second thought was insidious, so the Bruins were embarrassed on their home turf in their final matchup with Cal until the random scheduling gods found a one-time classic slot for a West Coast college. It felt right to see football played again.
My first college football game was UCLA vs. UC, and I was sitting on the CA sideline with the parents of my fellow CA alumni. My first college football game as a college student was the UCLA vs. California game, and I sat in the UCLA student section. So, yes, I’m a little bitter.
ESPN’s broadcast was filled with bittersweet moments. Pac-12 products Dave Fleming and Brock Osweiler still didn’t seem to believe that the end was actually coming, just as most of us feel. ESPN aired an emotional obituary-like segment of the conference, filled with captivating shots of the Rose Bowl and Heisman Trophy winners and some of the world’s most beautiful college scenery.
And multiple observers on social media pointed out the irony of it all, since it was a fight over broadcast rights and a misstep that ended the Pac-12. “‘No one wants the Pac-12 to end’…said on a network that could have saved it,” posted John Canzano, one of the journalists who broke the most news about the conference’s death.
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It was emphasized many times that this was a great year for Pac-12 football. Deion Sanders’ Colorado team captured the nation’s imagination early on before fading. Despite the presence of 2022 Heisman winner Caleb Williams, USC was planted in the face. The final game of the Pac-12 Conference Championship will pit two of the top six teams against each other. Undefeated Washington and 11-1 Oregon are aiming for a spot in the College Football Playoff.
But the Pac-12 was never just about football. That’s the real insult in all of this. Disbanding the conference would destroy one of the historic conferences in women’s basketball, men’s basketball, women’s soccer, baseball, volleyball, softball, water polo and many other sports. The schools that had formed their own true rivalries would be spread out across the Big Ten, ACC, and Big 12.
The Stanford women’s soccer team returns to ACC Country this week for the College Cup in Cary, North Carolina. The Cardinal will play BYU. BYU rallied from a 3-point deficit to beat North Carolina and held off a matchup with Tar Heels coach Anson Dorrance, who sent Cal and Stanford to the ACC with the fun idea of wanting their football programs to “wither away.” welcomed. If the Cardinal get past BYU, they will face either Clemson or Florida State ACC teams in the finals. A new conference rivalry begins.
But the value of college sports is legacy and connection. Connecting generations and sharing collective traditions. About the “tradition” celebrated throughout the final weekend of college football.
Here in the West, such words rang hollow.
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Contact Ann Killion: akillion@sfchronicle.com; Twitter: @annkillion