Geoff Schwartz Is Smarter Than You - Oregon to the Big Ten, and a Eulogy for the Pac-12

Episode Date: August 7, 2023

Geoff comes to you live on Twitter to share his thoughts on the news that Oregon and Washington will be leaving the Pac-12 to join the Big Ten. As the son of two UCLA Bruins, a former player for the Oregon Ducks, and a host on Pac-12 radio, Geoff is a lifelong fan who is uniquely positioned to share his thoughts on the dismemberment of the Pac-12. There aren't many things that can make Ducks and Huskies set aside their differences, but this might be one of them. Comment on the episode to share your thoughts, or reach out to Geoff @geoffschwartz on Twitter and Instagram.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

I've never done one of these by myself. I've always had a producer to help with these. All right, Oregon and Washington to the Big Ten is the report. I imagine if the reports are out, it's probably because it's happening. So let's just assume that it's happening and Oregon and Washington are out and even Pac-12 people are reporting it now. So I got my Oregon shirt on, home field, home team.

Thank you. Love it. I'm an Oregon duck, for those who don't know. My parents are Bruin alums, a group in Los Angeles. So I have a deep connection to the Pac-12 conference. I work on Pac-12 radio, done that for five years now. And I feel like I'm a good resource to talk about the feelings of this. And I've said for weeks, months, a year now,

it's been a year basically, that none of this has excited me. And as the process has gotten longer, remember UCLA and USC left in a year ago, right? Pac up, opened up negotiations. I think the process of this has made me just hate it, despise it even more because when Houston USC left, it was quick, right? It was one tweet from John Willner, gone. I've been working on it for months, obviously, but there was no lead up, nothing at all. When Oklahoma and Texas left, I believe it leaked out about a week before it happened, right? But again, it had been going on for months. And this has been a process

that we've had to listen to for a year now, right? It was when the Pac-12 was getting their TV deal done, was Oregon and Washington going, what was happening with the Big 12, was Oregon, was the Pac-12 absorbing some of those scores, were they not? And then as no Pac-12 deal got done by the end of the football season, there were artificial dates that we all set, right? It was conference championship game by the Rose Bowl, by the NCAA tournament or Pac-12 tournament, and this didn't happen. Then the rumors started getting hot and heavy about the Big 12 poaching Pac-12 teams.

It's all just exhausting, right? It's made me hate this process even more, even more than I probably should hate the process of this going down. If Oregon and Washington just announced, hey, man, we're out of here. We're gone. None of this hubbub, none of this back and forth. It's been the last 24 hours. I went to bed last night. Oregon and Washington, we're going to the Big Ten, right? Woke up this morning, got in my truck, picked my buddy up, a Rutgers alum, to go golf. And we talked the entire ride about joking, oh, we're going to go watch Oregon play Rutgers and blah, blah, blah, and joking about that and talking about other Big Ten, Pac-12 stuff.

Get to the golf course. And by then, it all had changed. Oregon was staying. Arizona was staying. Arizona was staying. And Utah was staying. Everyone was staying, Arizona was staying, and Utah was staying. Everyone was staying. It was all good. And then two hours later, I get it. The same people, that's their job. They're here. They're here. Flipped completely the other way. It's just

completely exhausting. And none of this excites me. Now, I would imagine at some point, I will grow fond of the Big Ten, right? But we like college sports. I'm going to say for we, I've talked about this enough. I don't get pushed back on this very much, is we like college sports because of the scar tissue, the tradition, the rivalries, the region, our conferences, right? When a college ball schedule comes out, and I'm an Oregon alum, as I mentioned, I'm looking at the teams that give us the most trouble, right? I'm looking at USC, of course, but I'm looking at like going to Washington state, having a play at Stanford, right? When our rivalry games are at and that shared tradition,

that scar tissue, like knowing, okay, these are tough games. This is what we got. All those things now are gone. It's one reason we love college sports. Now, here's the thing. I can be angry about it. I can be upset about it. I can not like it. But the fact remains, this was the right decision. You have to adapt with the changing times.

And the times have changed, right? In just a short while, college sports landscape has changed. NIL transfer portal, right? Got to accept those things. And obviously, the money being poured in by these networks to reshape conferences, it's changed fast. You have to adapt with the times. And I trust Oregon's leadership to do that. Remember, guys, I'm trying to find a parallel for Oregon for a long time now. And it's hard to really find one, right 1994 Oregon made two three four bowl games I think one 10 win season uh at the most and since then they built this program up to where it

is now a respectable brand a winning college football program and and a place that people know people enjoy watching play recruits go there and it's I live in the south I live in Charlotte North Carolina people know Oregon right it's grown into this brand it's playing in championship games even some of the newer champions in our sport georgia clemson they've been good before right they've had their time there's not been oregon and this is done with the leadership that's been at the school a lot of it has to do with of course the leadership from phil knight and nike but rob mold has been there a long time now. We have a new president,

but Oregon's always forward-thinking. They're always adapting. And in the end, this was the right decision. I'm fine with streaming. I'm a millennial, man. I stream everything. I don't watch TV unless it's sports. So I don't mind a streaming deal

for the Pac-12 conference. The issue is you can't have a streaming deal and then get paid $20 million a year when the Big 12 was making 31 and the Big 10 is making X and everything. You just can't do that. You can't have both. If Apple were to say,

we'll give you $40 million a year, you'll be on streaming, I'm sure Oregon, Washington, Oregon, Utah, Utah, Washington, those games will be on linear television. Great, sign me up. Because no Pac-12 school wanted to leave. Even Colorado, who didn't even feel very Pac-12, been a conference since 2012, haven't won anything.

They didn't want to leave. Arizona does not want to leave. Arizona State especially does not want to leave. Oregon did not want to leave. They wanted to stay out West, dominate the Pac-12 conference, go to playoffs, and basically keep the status quo. Money's not a problem for Oregon, right? If it was $20 million and they end up having to stay, not a problem.

But the gap is so big. And right now it feels like there's obviously four major conferences, but if you're in the SEC or the Big Ten, you've arrived, right? You've gone there. And for an athletic department that has put in so much time and effort and money and energy and resources into being the athletic department they are now when you're in the big 10 you feel like you're there you feel like you've arrived everything you've done to get to this point is validated so i get why this you know get why they made this move

but again it's not something where i'm like super pumped for it. Sorry, Iowa, Purdue, Rutgers fans. You might feel the same way about Oregon. Don't get me wrong. But like, I don't really care. Like Ohio State, Michigan, it'll be great games, but there's not like that like visceral reaction. Oregon State last year, if you recall, rushed the ball, I think 19 times in a row to end the Oregon game, right?

The game formula was a civil war. They scored four touchdowns. They pounded Oregon, right? They rammed it down our throats. It was miserable. I hated it, right? It hurt me. I'm not even there. It hurt me to watch our rival do that to us. It's not going to feel the same when someone in the big 10 does it. Even if it was like Washington state or Cal or Arizona does it, you still feel that pain because guess what? You're going to play them next year, but you have a 50 year history or 40year history of playing these teams, right? And so that's all gone.

Again, I get the sports changing. I have no problem with change. It is what it is, right? Again, NIL, transfer portal, things change all the time. You have to adapt. I'm just a little sad. I know people not at the Pac-12 conference, and there's many things they have

done wrong in this process. We know that, right? Starting from 2010, they should have found a way to get Oklahoma and Texas in the program, in the conference, whether it was capitulating on television contract for, for Texas.

Okay. You want Longhorn network? Great. It'll be on the PAC 12 network. Remember the PAC 12 has, I think seven, the main channel and then regional channels, right?

PAC 12, Arizona, PAC 12, Oregon, PAC-12 Washington, connected to Pac-12 Texas. You could have made it work. They did not make it work. Didn't happen, right? Didn't expand a couple years ago. Now, the report is USC blocked that expansion. Kind of a sneaky thing to do when you're negotiating with the Big Ten or having an eye toward leaving, that you blocked expansion, which would have saved our conference.

You know, the Pac-12 TV deal not finding its way to more homes. I have DirecTV for NFL Sunday Ticket. Obviously, that's off now. I might get rid of it. But I don't have Pac-12 Network. I have the app. I can watch on my iPad. I haven't watched the app on my television.

But it's not readily available. You got to take extra clicks to get there. And the missteps along the way have, have, have gone to this point. And I was asked today whether the PAC 12 is going to survive. I mean, it might be around,

the brand might be there, but the PAC 12 without Oregon, Washington, without Arizona, Arizona state without UCLA and USC, what is the Pac-12? I don't know. It's not the Pac-12 anymore.

It's not the Conference of Champions anymore. It's not everything we liked about the Pac-12. And, yeah, some people liked the academic part of it. That's mostly gone now. Stanford's still there. Maybe they stay. And I was asked about Stanford and Cal. I mean, I guess if you keep Stanford, Cal, Oregon State, Washington State in a Mountain West conference.

But, guys, I like Oregon State. I have no problem with Oregon State. I don't like Washington. I don't want to lose Oregon State, but I have no issues with Oregon State. I never had a problem with them when I was there. I wanted to beat them, of course, and it stung when we didn't. But I know people at Oregon State. I have friends that went to Oregon State.

I have no problem with Oregon State. I have no problem went to Oregon State. I'm not part of Oregon State. I'm not part of Washington State, Pullman. It's not their fault that Washington State is in Pullman. It's not Oregon State's fault that Oregon State's in Corvallis. And you're killing these athletic departments, right? You're going at this Mountain West Pac-12 West Coast thing. They're not going to get paid as much money. And you have programs in debt at Washington State.

You have a program at Oregon State that's continuing to invest in their facilities. They're going to have to pay John Lennon Smith a lot of money. He's a fabulous football coach. And that all comes crumbling down when you don't have that television money. Again, it's why Oregon, I think, look into the future. Let's get in the Big Ten Conference. Let's get it done. And let's just get settled in. Now, we don't know the money. There's talk now that maybe they're getting more

of sharing. Maybe the information that came out this morning was basically to get a bigger revenue cut, right? Maybe that's what it was. I don't know. We'll find out more as we continue to go. know we'll find out more as we continue to go but it had to be done um yeah we're going to staff i feel terrible for them man i mean oregon state washington state sucks um i don't know what to tell you guys i don't like again i've been very steadfast in this i don't like any of this uh i've accepted it sometimes you have to accept things in life right right? So some questions I got on Twitter. You go to my Twitter. If you're watching this, I think you're on Twitter too. So people are asking me kind of the same thing about what Big Ten game

I'm most looking forward to. Last time we went to Ohio State, we won. Last time we went to Michigan, we won. I was there in 07. We just beat Ohio State. I've not been to Ohio State. I've not been to any Big Ten place except Michigan, obviously. I've actually been to a Big Ten championship game.

I covered the Michigan-Iowa game two years ago now when they won like 45-3. I guess for the fun of it, like I mentioned earlier, my best friend here in Charlotte went to Rutgers. We're for sure going to a Rutgers-Oregon game. But again, it's going to take years to build up this, you know, that visceral feeling of like losing to someone that you know, right? Of course, I don't want to lose any games as an Oregon fan. But like losing to Rutgers might be embarrassing, but like you're not going to have that deep pain of that loss. But, you know, I would love to go to a lot of these games i love i love stadiums like i i don't know if you

guys do too i just think they're super cool um and i love them and i'd love to go visit as many as i can i've made like 15 baseball uh uh parks but um i don't let me sit real quick. Remember, on the radio, you don't have to talk this long in a row without stopping. So I would say that Michigan State, I mean, all these schools, Penn State, Whiteout, that'd be awesome. Someone asked me the Board of Regents had met. I don't know yet, but I would imagine that Oregon doesn't do things without double, triple checking. They have been quiet in this whole process.

Like when you hear sources out west, it's never Oregon. They haven't said anything, anything at all. Today was the first time I saw an acknowledgement from someone that heard from a source in Oregon that they were going to Big Ten. They haven't said nothing. I'd imagine that this has already been cleared. I got a question about the state legislature getting involved. I think they tried to do that and it already got shut down.

So maybe that was Washington. But one of the two got shut down already. So it is – oh oh no, man. Look, recruiting wise certainly helps. It's going to help. Oregon's recruiting great anyways. But again, you can't say, and I've talked to recruiting people about this and they've kind of pushed back and I've said like, hey, you can't tell recruits we're on Apple TV

and they're going to want to come to Oregon. And they say that money, and I get it. Money will play and Oregon has money, but it's got to matter a little bit, right? Like, hey, family, we're not ESPN and Fox, but when you're recruiting against Ohio State and USC, they are. We're recruiting better than USC anyways. The USC thing yesterday about that they don't want Oregon in the Big Ten,

and by the way, that has been out for a while. It just made news with a big article. Wilderness reported that for a long time now. It made me giggle because they claim to not care about Oregon, and they supremely care about Oregon. So, oh, man. Not fun, guys. Does anyone like this?

Like, who likes this? How do you win an 18-team conference? You have two nine-team divisions, and you play conference games in one crossover, and you play that other crossover once every nine years, and then you crown a champion after you win your division. And really, 20 teams would be best. You have pods. You're like the NFL, right?

You have four pods of five, and then you basically play two playoff games to get to the winner of the conference or the division, right? That's what you would do, right? You have an A, B, C, and D pod, and A and B play and C and D play, and then the winners of those play, and that's how you make it with 20 teams, I guess. It all feels like we're losing the spirit of what this is about. And again, in the end, it's fine.

This is where we're going. You have to – you can be angry and curmudgeonly and be upset about it. No problem. But you got to know this is where we're going, right? And you got to accept this is where sports is going, right? So – and look, don't get me wrong the matchups are great i've said this before regionally this conference alignment all sucks nothing good about it however the games are so much better we're gonna get so much better football because we're gonna have michigan oregon ucla UCLA-Michigan State, Ohio State-USC.

Those are great games. There are fantastic games to have. But, again, nationally, excuse me, regionally, not great. So, I don't know. I'm going to go on solid verbal soon with Dan and Ty. So, I don't know. I'm going to go on solid verbal soon with Dan and Ty. And, yeah, it looks like the conference is done, man.

It is done. It's over. I'm looking through questions now for you guys. And, yeah, I guess what's the first thing I got to do now that I'm in the Big Ten guy? I don't know. Do we have to, like, do we immediately lose in the NCAA tournament? Is that part of it? What happens to us, man? Again, like the shared history, all that

stuff, man. It's just gone, man. It's all gone. It's all gone. All right, guys. Enjoyed it. Take care, everyone. I'm sure I'll have more to say as the days go on, but Oregon, Washington to the Big Ten. Pac-12 is over as we know it

sad day, sucks we got this direction, didn't have to go here but you had to in the end because money rules all, alright guys take care everybody Outro Music