Pac-2 may take page from unlikely source’s playbook to remain in Power Five

For their own survival, the Pac-2 schools, Week 5 opponents Wazzu and Oregon State, could be taking a page out of pro soccer’s playbook by implementing a promotion/relegation system from the Power Five and Group of Five with Mountain West schools; this, at least, according to Yahoo Sports’s Ross Dellenger.

“The Pac-2’s answer, some believe, should be to create a two-conference partnership with the Mountain West around a model similar to European soccer leagues, using a relegation and promotion system for football (and potentially other sports),” Dellenger wrote.

“The goal is to create high-stakes matchups, scheduling alliances and a points system to fuel interest and excitement in college football’s lower tier. In theory, such a system would make these lower-resourced football programs more appealing to linear and streaming partners in a world where the industry is leaning on such income to survive.”

The Pac-2 had the worst luck with the timing of conference realignment

By the end of the 2022 season, Pac-12 football was seen as so far behind the rest of the pack in the Power Five that it was the de facto sacrificial lamb if other conferences came calling — and they sure did come calling between the end of the 2022-23 academic calendar and the start of 2023-24.

Colorado took the Big 12 jump first, with Oregon and Washington jumping to the Big Ten to follow USC and UCLA next. Subsequently, Utah, Arizona, and Arizona State joined the Buffs in the Big 12, temporarily turning the Pac-12 into the Pac-4. Then the ACC scooped up Stanford and Cal.

Now, Wazzu and Oregon State are exploring uncharted waters in collegiate athletics in a somewhat gimmicky last-ditch attempt to stay in the highest level of Division I football. And their luck couldn’t have been worse since the Pac-12, through Week 3 of the 2023 season at least, is a deep conference that has had more than two-thirds of its programs ranked.

And Wazzu and Oregon State are two of the top teams leading the charge.

The bright side for them? They figure to be among the top teams in a reformed Pac-12 featuring much of the current Mountain West.