SAN FRANCISCO — The Pac-10’s athletic directors wrapped up two days of agenda-setting meetings Thursday and, not surprisingly, nothing was settled.
Faced with the complex task of creating plans for revenue sharing, divisional alignment and a championship game in football, the athletic directors hashed out the details that will set the foundation for the conference’s presidents and chancellors at their meeting Oct. 21.
“I’m very pleased with how the meetings went,” Pac-10 commissioner Larry Scott said. “I would describe it as significant progress on the important strategic issues we’ve been debating, and I feel good about where we are. In my view, we’ve narrowed the options and kind of flushed out the pro and cons of different scenarios in a way we hoped we would.”
The meetings were never intended to reach any final conclusions, only recommendations for the board as the conference expands to 12 teams next school year with the addition of Colorado and Utah.
The three major, interconnected issues are complex and wide-ranging, each school having its own unique stake in what happens.
Revenue sharing is the marquee issue, whether to continue with the current appearance-based model, which favors USC and UCLA, or to split up the money equally among the 12 schools.
The football championship game appears to be a done deal, but the conference still needs to decide whether to use an NFL-based model where the higher-ranked team plays at home or to hold it at a neutral site such as San Diego or Las Vegas.
Finding a way to break the 12 teams into divisions has been a complex task, with schools wanting to make sure they still get to play traditional rivals every year and to play in Southern California.
The conference is looking at several options, from splitting the conference North/South or East/West, to a “zipper” model that would split up geographical rivals down the middle and have them play in the season finale.
Footnotes.
UNLV receiver Phillip Payne will miss Saturday’s game against West Virginia for making disparaging remarks through his Twitter account, according to the Las Vegas Sun.
• Notre Dame fifth-year senior center Dan Wenger won’t play this season following two concussions in preseason camp.
• Washington State safety Chima Nwachukwu will miss Saturday’s game against Oregon because of a hamstring injury.
• Southern Miss running back Desmond Johnson has been suspended for Saturday’s game against East Carolina for a “violation of team policy.”
• Baylor receivers Josh Gordon and Willie Jefferson are questionable for Saturday’s game against Texas Tech after they were cited on misdemeanor marijuana possession charges.
• Utah and BYU agreed to a home-and-home series beginning in 2011, with Utah canceling a planned three-game series with Boise State to make room for the schedule change.
The Associated Press
