[msqueri]

You can call it Pac-10 or Pac-12 or Mountain Pacific or Pacific Mountain or whatever you want, we're not turning a western conference without USC, Oregon, and Washington into a power conference. Impossible. I'd say the bare minimum definition of a power conference would be something like being able to consistently have 3+ top 25 teams. The programs you'd be talking about in the most ambitious geographic grouping possible (taking all teams in the western part of the United States not currently signed up for a Power Four conference) have had more than two teams ranked in the top 25 seven times in the last 34 years (I picked 34 because that's how far back Wikipedia lists top 25 rankings, top 20 before that). For what it's worth, they were 1991, 1992, 2004, 2006, 2011, 2012, and 2018. This grouping of schools is a quality of programs that can be relevant in very good years but absolutely will not be relevant in typical years. There's too much demographics, culture, institutional constraints, and competition nationally for that not to be the case. You can't take a conference headlined by Stanford, Cal, Oregon State, Washington State, Boise State, Air Force, and Fresno State and make it a Power Five conference. That's fantasy. Hell of a Group of Five conference, but not power. Impediments are too structural. The hope the fantasists can spin is that the the Pac-4 remnants would lift up the other teams, which is true....but being without the rest of the Pac-12 will simultaneously suppress the Pac-4 remnants. Quality of conference just matters too much for money, prestige, and recruiting. Cannot be major without USC, Washington, or Oregon or joining a non-regional coalition. Staying regional without the only consistently relevant western schools is a path to irrelevance. Maybe some are fine with that but we should be clear-eyed about it.

If we are forced to go regional outside of the Big 10 (which given its new members is actually sort of a regional conference for us), we should do it with anger that we've been unfairly kicked out of the party and with determination to get back to the party. The goal wouldn't be to make the Pacific Mountain Conference major but rather to make ourselves major again, in spite of the Pacific Mountain Conference. We should plow resources and determination into following the path BYU, Cincinnati, and Houston forged before us of major teams kicked out of major conference status that fought their way back.

[msqueri]

You can call it Pac-10 or Pac-12 or Mountain Pacific or Pacific Mountain or whatever you want, we're not turning a western conference without USC, Oregon, and Washington into a power conference. Impossible. I'd say the bare minimum definition of a power conference would be something like being able to consistently have 3+ top 25 teams. The programs you'd be talking about in the most ambitious geographic grouping possible (taking all teams in the western part of the United States not currently signed up for a Power Four conference) have had more than two teams ranked in the top 25 seven times in the last 34 years (I picked 34 because that's how far back Wikipedia lists top 25 rankings, top 20 before that). For what it's worth, they were 1991, 1992, 2004, 2006, 2011, 2012, and 2018. This grouping of schools is a quality of programs that can be relevant in very good years but absolutely will not be relevant in typical years. There's too much demographics, culture, institutional constraints, and competition nationally for that not to be the case. You can't take a conference headlined by Stanford, Cal, Oregon State, Washington State, Boise State, Air Force, and Fresno State and make it a Power Five conference. That's fantasy. Hell of a Group of Five conference, but not power. Impediments are too structural. The hope the fantasists can spin is that the the Pac-4 remnants would lift up the other teams, which is true....but being without the rest of the Pac-12 will simultaneously suppress the Pac-4 remnants. Quality of conference just matters too much for money, prestige, and recruiting. Cannot be major without USC, Washington, or Oregon or joining a non-regional coalition. Staying regional without the only consistently relevant western schools is a path to irrelevance. Maybe some are fine with that but we should be clear-eyed about it.

If we are forced to go regional outside of the Big 10 (which given its new members is actually sort of a regional conference for us), we should do it with anger that we've been unfairly kicked out of the party and with determination to get back to the party. The goal wouldn't be to make the Pacific Mountain Conference major but rather to make ourselves major again, in spite of the Pacific Mountain Conference. We should plow resources and determination into following the path BYU, Cincinnati, and Houston forged before us of major teams kicked out of major conference status that fought their way back.