A solution for half of the Pac-4 teams that remain after the Pac-12 had Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and ASU poached from the Big 12, and USC, UCLA, Oregon, and Washington taken away by the Big Ten, has been offered by The Athletic’s Andy Staples: several of college football’s current independents and two military academies currently in a conference forming a football-only conference with Cal and Stanford.
This would be ND joining a conference in football on its own terms, not being forced into one by someone else.
— Andy Staples (@Andy_Staples) August 10, 2023
Notre Dame plays Navy every year because Notre Dame might have had to close without the Navy. Seems like a pay-it-forward situation with Stanford.
“Hear me out,” Staples prefaced before saying, “Notre Dame, Stanford, Cal, Army, Navy, Air Force That’s your conference. Sell it to NBC. ND has to take less, but ND has been taking less for years at this point. Army-Navy is a massive TV property. Those are teams that teams in other leagues would schedule OOC.”
Of course, Notre Dame is in the ACC in all sports besides football — and even went as far as pitching to the ACC for Cal and Stanford to join the conference due to their academic strengths — and would likely remain that way.
Mountain West ‘might’ still have a chance to work something out with Pac-4 schools
Per Trojans Wire’s Matt Wadleigh, the Mountain West is still an option for the Pac-4 schools amidst the death of the Pac-12.
“The ACC refused to vote on admitting Stanford and Cal on Wednesday night, a clear indication the conference doesn’t have the votes to approve the move,” Wadleigh prefaced before saying, “If the ACC’s attempt to bring in Stanford and Cal has stalled, that means the AAC is still a player. It also means the Mountain West might still have a chance to work something out with the Pac-4.”
The American is a predominantly southern-based conference, so travel to and from the Pacific Northwest would be a massive burden on everyone involved, particularly the non-revenue sports. They make less geographic sense for the Pac-4 schools than the Mountain West but are the likeliest conference to ever be considered as a Power Five of the current Group of Five conferences, though.