Oregon Board of Trustees calls emergency meeting amid Big Ten rumors

Rumors and reports continue to swirl about Oregon, Washington and the future of the Pac-12. That’s why an emergency board meeting raised some eyebrows.

The Oregon Board of Trustees has called an emergency board meeting for Friday afternoon. According to the YouTube page which will stream the meeting, it will start at 2:30 p.m. PT despite the website initially saying 2 p.m. PT. The announcement comes as the Ducks are at the center of realignment rumors with the Big Ten reportedly preparing to invite them to the conference, along with Washington.

Multiple reports indicated the Big Ten was gearing up to add Oregon and Washington as talks about the Pac-12’s grant of rights took a turn Friday afternoon. The Pac-12 is already losing USC and UCLA to the Big Ten in 2024, and all signs point to the Ducks and Huskies going with them.

That means the Big Ten is planning to pull in four teams from the West Coast. Although the vote to bring in Oregon and Washington is likely to be unanimous, ESPN’s Pete Thamel indicated that wasn’t necessarily a popular decision with USC last year when that decision came down.

“Former USC AD Mike Bohn had made it pretty clear internally at USC that part of the allure of this move was that they can own the West coast. They can be the West coast destination. They can be the place that recruits want to go,” Thamel said on The Paul Finebaum Show Friday. “They’d be making twice as much money from TV as any other West coast competitor. And so that was not something negotiated in the deal, I want to be clear. But it was something that was certainly talked about and something coveted and valued.”

Los Angeles Times columnist Brady McCollough went a step further, writing that USC was “adamant with the Big Ten that they did not want to be followed.” He went on to state that if the Big Ten had to add, USC wanted “anybody but the Ducks.”

Still, it appears the Ducks are a primary target for the Big Ten as the realignment winds continue to blow. As for the Pac-12 as a whole, other teams — Arizona, Arizona State and Utah — appear ready to make the jump to the Big 12, making the situation even more dire for the league. Colorado has already been announced as a Big 12 member starting in 2024.