I think this Pac 10 commissioner is dreaming. Has he seen the OCC schedules of the vast majority of Big 12 teams? Texas schedules Louisiana Tech and El Paso. Nebraska schedules Maine and South Dakota State. They have no interest in lining up Oregon or other Pac 10 teams on a regular basis.
That being said though, it looks to me that CU to the Pac 10 is dead. Seems like that conference is not interested in stealing schools or breaking up another conference. One Pac 10 AD said that Utah and Denver don't bring enough eyeballs to the conference. I thought the Denver media market was a hot property. Guess not.
Frankly this is laughable, as is most of the speculation going on in the other dozen threads going on with this subject. Remember the sure thing of Hawk being gone last year? Granted, I am as guilty as everybody else in wanting to know what is going to happen. But we have gone from this is a done deal to this is dead in the water with ZERO facts released from the powers that be. Newsflash: the conferences don't all really know what is going to happen yet either, that is why they are researching it. I will give my own 2 cents on what I see:
The Big 10(11) is looking very hard at expanding what is already the best revenue generating conference in the country. Most of the the other power conferences are watching this with interest. The Pac 10 specifically because of they are in the position to negotiate a new television deal and want to maximize their own revenue stream.
Personally I think the Pac 10 deal is far from dead. First they want a conference championship game, because this is a massive revenue and national interest generator that has worked amazingly well for the SEC/Big 12. Unless the NCAA changes their tune, the Pac 10 needs two more teams. Second, the golden rule...those with the money make the rules. If the Big 10(11) expands, especially to 14 or more teams, they will be the biggest kid on the block, and the landscape of college football will be more likely driven by their interests. The Pac 10, along with the other power conferences, don't want to be the little brother. The Pac 10 specifically has always been considered a sister conference to the Big 10 with the Rose Bowl tie in, and I can guarantee they don't want to become the little sister conference. They may not generate necessarily more revenue per team by expanding, but they will generate more revenue overall.
If the Big 10(11) expands, especially to 14 or more, my gut tells me that there is a better than 90% chance the Pac 10 expands as well. UT will be the first on their speed dial, but CU will be second. So I guess what I am saying is we don't really know any more about what is going to happen then we did 2 months ago, and frankly a lot of what might happen will be driven by what the Big 10(11) does first, which is also in the pure speculation phase. We will know soon enough.
