Oregon State president releases statement on Pac-12's 'rebuild' effort, future plans

With just four teams set to be part of what was formerly the Pac-12 in 2024, it appears the plan is to build the conference back up. Oregon State president Jayathi Murthy released a statement to back up that idea Friday afternoon.

OSU, Cal, Stanford and Washington State are the four schools left behind by the latest round of realignment. Six schools announced their plans to leave the Pac-12 in 2024 over the last couple weeks, joining USC and UCLA as they head to new homes following the expiration of the league’s grant of rights.

Despite having just four members left after this year, Murthy reaffirmed the commitment to keeping the Pac-12 — or a new version of it — part of the college sports landscape.

“We continue to believe that preserving the Pac-12 is in the best interests of OSU student-athletes and the remaining universities, and so we are doing everything in our control to stabilize and rebuild the conference,” Murthy wrote in a letter to the Oregon State community. “As a trusted broker and convenor, Oregon State is playing an important role in navigating both the future of the Pac-12 and the realignment among universities across the Western United States more broadly.

“We are ready for this challenge. We are prepared for multiple possible scenarios and continue to pursue every opportunity for OSU student-athletes and the university.”

The so-called Pac-4 came to be after Oregon and Washington announced their decisions to join USC and UCLA in the Big Ten in 2024. After that, the remaining Four Corner schools — Arizona, Arizona State, and Utah — announced they would go to the Big 12 along with Colorado that same year.

If the Pac-4 want to stay together and rebuild the conference, there’s a route they could take. NCAA rules say recognizes a conference as part of the FBS if it has eight teams, according to Yahoo! Sports’ Ross Dellenger. However, there is a two-year grace period if a league falls below that mark. An NCAA bylaw states a conference will still be considered part of the FBS for two years after it drops below the eight-team threshold.

A look at how the Pac-12 became the ‘Pac-4’

The Pac-12 situation stems from ongoing media and grant of rights negotiations, which have gone on since USC and UCLA announced their departures. Commissioner George Kliavkoff presented a deal in early August that was mostly streaming with Apple and would’ve brought in $23 million for each team, according to Canzano. That came after ESPN reportedly brought a contract worth $30 million per team to the table, but the Pac-12 wanted $50 million for team and the network walked away.

Ultimately, talks fell through, and a meeting meant to sign the grant of rights didn’t go as planned, either. That meant the conference’s future got thrown into serious doubt, and the four remaining teams took an interesting step toward a resurrection on Friday.

Former West Virginia athletic director and XFL commissioner Oliver Luck is coming aboard as a consultant, Bald Face Truth’s John Canzano reported. He was seen as a potential candidate for the Pac-12 commissioner job which ultimately went to Kliavkoff, but he has also made an impact in of previous realignment changes, most notably with the Big 12.