Pac-12 Conference

The Pac-12 currently has 12 full-member institutions. The conference was previously split into two divisions, the North Division and the South Division, for football only.

The Pac-12's members are spread evenly among three regions, with four schools in California, four in the Pacific Northwest, and four in the Four Corners region.

  Members departing for the Big Ten Conference on August 2, 2024.
  Members departing for the Big 12 Conference on August 2, 2024.
  Members departing for the Atlantic Coast Conference on August 2, 2024.

The Pac-12 has four affiliate member institutions in California and one in Arkansas.

Notes

No school has left the Pac-12 since its founding as the AAWU in 1959. Two members of the PCC were not invited to join the AAWU or its successors.

Notes

The roots of the Pac-12 Conference go back to December 2, 1915, when the Pacific Coast Conference (PCC) was founded at a meeting at the Imperial Hotel in Portland, Oregon.[84] Charter members were the University of California (now University of California, Berkeley), University of Washington, University of Oregon, and Oregon Agricultural College (now Oregon State University).[84] An official of Stanford University also attended the meeting but declined to join right away because, unlike the other schools, it was not going to sponsor a football team in the coming year and it was not willing to prohibit freshmen from competing in sports.[84] The PCC began play in 1916.

One year later, Washington State College (now Washington State University) joined the league, followed by Stanford University in 1918.

In 1922, the PCC expanded to eight teams with the admission of USC and Idaho. Montana joined the Conference in 1924, and in 1928, the PCC grew to 10 members with the addition of UCLA.

For many years, the conference split into two divisions for basketball and baseball—a Southern Division comprising the four California schools and a Northern Division comprising the six schools in the Pacific Northwest.

In 1950, Montana departed to join the Mountain States Conference. The PCC continued as a nine-team league through June 1959.

Following "pay-for-play" scandals at California, USC, UCLA, and Washington, the PCC disbanded in June 1959. Ten months earlier in August 1958, these four schools agreed to form a new conference that would take effect the following summer.[85][86] When the four schools and Stanford began discussions for a new conference in 1959, retired Admiral Thomas J. Hamilton interceded and suggested the schools consider creating a national "power conference" (Hamilton had been a key player, head coach, and athletic director at Navy, and was the current athletic director at Pittsburgh). Nicknamed the "Airplane Conference",[87][88][89] the five former PCC schools would have played with other major academically-oriented schools, including Army, Navy, Air Force, Notre Dame, Pitt, Penn State, and Syracuse.[87][90] The effort fell through when a Pentagon official vetoed the idea and the service academies backed out.[91]

On July 1, 1959, the new Athletic Association of Western Universities was launched, with California, UCLA, USC, and Washington as the four charter members.[92] Stanford joined during the first month.[86][93] Hamilton left Pittsburgh to become the first commissioner of the AAWU,[92][94] and remained for twelve years.[95] The conference also was popularly known as the Big Five from 1960 to 1962.[96] When Washington State joined in 1962,[97] the conference became informally known as the Big Six.[96][98] The new league inherited the PCC's berth in the Rose Bowl; since 1947, the PCC champion had received an automatic bid to the bowl.

Oregon and Oregon State joined in the summer of 1964.[99][100][101] With their addition, the conference was known unofficially as the Pacific Athletic Conference,[102][103][104][105][106] and then the Pacific-8 (as there already was a major conference called the Big Eight). In 1968, the AAWU formally renamed itself the Pacific-8 Conference, or Pac-8 for short. The Pac-8 did not allow a second bowl team from the conference until the 1975 season;[107] in basketball, participation in the National Invitation Tournament (NIT) was not allowed until 1973.[108]

Idaho was never invited to join the AAWU;[101] the Vandals were independent for four years until the formation of the Big Sky Conference in 1963, and were independent in football until 1965.

Final Pac-10 Conference logo

In 1978, the conference added Arizona and Arizona State from the Western Athletic Conference, becoming the Pacific-10 Conference or Pac-10. The invitations to the schools were extended in December 1976,[109] and the expansion formally announced in May 1977.[110]

In the mid-1980s, three of the northwest schools (Oregon, Oregon State, Washington State) were having financial difficulties in athletics, primarily with revenue from football, and their long-term membership in the conference was in question.[111]

The Pac-10 began sponsoring women's athletics in the fall of 1986. Women's teams previously competed with other large universities on the Pacific coast in either the Northern Pacific Conference or the Western Collegiate Athletic Association.

In the mid-1990s, the conference expressed interest in admitting the University of Colorado and the University of Texas after the collapse of the Southwest Conference. Texas expressed an interest in joining a strong academic conference, but joined three fellow Southwest Conference schools (Texas A&M, Texas Tech, and Baylor) to merge with the Big Eight Conference to form the Big 12 Conference in 1996. Colorado elected to remain in the newly formed Big 12.[112]

Before the addition of Colorado and Utah in 2011, only the Ivy League had maintained its membership for a longer time than the Pac-10 among Division I conferences. Commissioner Larry Scott said on February 9, 2010, that the window for expansion was open for the next year as the conference began negotiations for a new television deal. Speaking on a conference call to introduce former Big 12 commissioner Kevin Weiberg as his new deputy, Scott talked about possibly adding new teams to the conference and launching a new television network.[113] Scott, the former head of the Women's Tennis Association, took over the conference in July 2009. In his first eight months on the job, he saw growing interest from the membership over the possibility of adding teams for the first time since Arizona and Arizona State joined the conference in 1978.

In early June 2010, there were reports that the Pac-10 was considering adding up to six teams to the conference: the University of Texas, Texas A&M University, Texas Tech University, the University of Oklahoma, Oklahoma State University, and the University of Colorado.[114]

On June 10, 2010, the University of Colorado Boulder accepted an invitation to join the Pac-10 Conference, effective starting with the 2012–2013 academic year.[115][116] The school later announced it would join the conference a year earlier than previously announced, in the 2011–2012 academic year.

On June 15, 2010, a deal was reached between Texas and the Big 12 Conference to keep Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, and Oklahoma State in the Big 12. Following Texas' decision, the other Big 12 schools that had been rumored candidates to join the Pac-10 announced they would remain in the Big 12. This deal effectively ended the Pac-10's ambition to potentially become a sixteen-team conference.[117]

On June 17, 2010, the University of Utah accepted an invitation to join the Pac-10 Conference, effective starting July 2011.[115] Utah was a member of the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) with Arizona and Arizona State before those two left for the Pac-10 in 1978. The Utes left an expanded WAC with seven other schools in 1999 to form the new Mountain West Conference. Utah became the first "BCS Buster" to join a BCS conference, having played in (and won) two BCS games beforehand.

On July 27, 2010, the conference unveiled a new logo and announced that the Pac-10 would be renamed the Pac-12 when Utah and Colorado formally joined in July 2011. On October 21, the Pac-12 announced that its football competition would be split into two divisions—a North Division comprising the Pacific Northwest and Bay Area schools, and a South Division comprising the Mountain Time Zone and Southern California schools. On July 1, 2011, the Pac-12 assumed its 12-team alignment when both Colorado and Utah officially joined as full members.

On August 15, 2012, the conference debuted the Pac-12 Network. It was the third college sports conference to launch a dedicated network, and the first to completely fund and own their own network outright. Since 2014, the conference has been headquartered in San Francisco, California, with the conference moving to working remotely once the lease expires in June 2023.[118] It had been based in the nearby East Bay suburb of Walnut Creek since the late 1970s.[119]

On August 24, 2021, the Pac-12, ACC, and Big Ten announced the formation of a "historic alliance" that would bring their member institutions "together on a collaborative approach surrounding the future evolution of college athletics and scheduling."[120] The formation of this alliance between 3 of the Power Five conferences was in response to Oklahoma and Texas announcing plans to leave the Big 12 and join the SEC. The alliance included an inter-conference scheduling component for football and men's and women's basketball. In 2021, the Pac-12 paid $19.8 million to its member schools, the lowest distribution in the Power Five.[121]

Despite the alliance, on June 30, 2022, UCLA[122] and USC[123] announced their departure to the Big Ten Conference beginning in the 2024–25 academic year. As a result of losing two of the conferences tentpole programs (and the entirety of the Los Angeles television market), the conference’s ongoing media rights negotiations became much more complicated. ESPN had reportedly made an offer where the ten remaining schools would receive around $30 million per year. This was rejected by member schools, who counter offered $50 million per school per year. ESPN responded by walking away from the negotiating table.

Meanwhile, the Big 12 Conference was beginning negotiations on an extension to its media rights deal. Commissioner Brett Yormark managed to maneuver themselves ahead of the Pac-12 and secure $31.7 million for its member schools per year. This put further strain on the Pac-12 and drew out the negotiations much further.

Reports began circulating that Commissioner Kliavkoff had been to the San Diego State and SMU campuses for tours. This was allegedly part of the conference’s vetting process for expansion. So confident that the two universities would get offers that they told recruits it was a “done deal.” San Diego State sent the Mountain West Conference a letter notifying them of their impending departure. The Pac-12, however, was adamant about securing a media rights deal before expanding. Without an incoming offer before a June 30, 2023, deadline, San Diego State had to rescind their intention to leave the Mountain West.

At the start of Pac-12 Media Days on July 21, 2023, Commissioner Kliavkoff was asked about the status of the media rights deal and conference expansion, deflecting most questions on the matter. Having heard enough, Colorado president Rick George left Media Days early to return to Boulder. Less than a week later on July 27, Colorado announced they would be returning to the Big 12 effective the 2024–25 school year.

The nine remaining Pac-12 members then demanded an update on the negotiations, including numbers on expected payouts. Kliavkoff came back with a deal from the AppleTV streaming service that paid member institutions in the low to mid $20 million range, albeit with escalators for meeting subscriber quotas. The combination of the comparatively lower payout as well as no traditional television exposure was unpalatable for most of the remaining members. On August 4, 2023, Oregon and Washington announced they would be following UCLA and USC in the Big Ten conference for the 2024 season.[124] Later on that same day, Arizona, Arizona State, and Utah announced that they will leave for the Big 12 Conference starting in 2024.[125] On September 1, 2023, it was reported that California and Stanford will leave for the Atlantic Coast Conference starting in 2024.[126]

The Pac-12 claims the PCC's history as its own. Not only does it maintain the automatic bid from the Rose Bowl inherited from the PCC, but the eight largest schools in the old PCC all eventually joined the new league. However, the old PCC operated under a separate charter.

The Pac-12 is one of the founding members of the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF), a conference organized to provide competition in non-revenue Olympic sports. All-Pac-12 members participate in at least one MPSF sport (men's and women's indoor track and field both actually have enough participating Pac-12 schools for the conference to sponsor a championship, but the Pac-12 has opted not to do so). For certain sports, the Pac-12 admits certain schools as associate members.

 Full members  Other Conference  Other Conference 

Member-by-member sponsorship of the 11 men's Pac-12 sports.

  Members departing for the Big Ten.
  Members departing for the Big 12.
  Members departing for the ACC.

Men's sports that are not sponsored by the Pac-12 but are fielded as a varsity sport at Pac-12 schools

Notes

Member-by-member sponsorship of the 13 women's Pac-12 sports.

  Members departing for the Big Ten.
  Members departing for the Big 12.
  Members departing for the ACC.

Women's sports that are not sponsored by the Pac-12 but are fielded as a varsity sport at Pac-12 schools

Notes

Source:[147]

The NACDA Learfield Sports Directors' Cup is an annual award given by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics to the U.S. colleges and universities with the most success in collegiate athletics. Stanford has won more Director Cup Titles than any Division I University with 25 total, as well as top ten rankings with 28. They have never finished lower than 2nd in the 28 years the competition has taken place, with the 2019-20 season unable to be completed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.[148] Stanford is the only university to finish inside the top 5 every single year. 9 of the 12 Pac-12 schools have a 10 year average of finishing inside the top 45.

  Members departing for the Big Ten.
  Members departing for the Big 12.
  Members departing for the ACC.

The Capital One Cup is an annual award given by ESPN. Universities compete against each other by acquiring points throughout the school year based on how each individual sport teams finish in their respective sport. The sports are divided into two separate groups based on the popularity of the sport and the number of teams competing in the sport, with the group B sports group counting for 3 times the amount of points as group A. There are two separate cups for both the men & women. The winning schools receive $200,000 to their student athlete scholarship fund.[159] Stanford was won the most titles in both the Men's, three and Women's competition with 7. Stanford is one of two universities to win the Capital One Cup in both the Men's and Women's divisions.

  Members departing for the Big Ten.
  Members departing for the Big 12.
  Members departing for the ACC.

Men's

Women's

This list goes through the 2022 season.[184]

  Members departing for the Big Ten.
  Members departing for the Big 12.
  Members departing for the ACC.

† The NCAA sanctioned USC in June 2010 for violations in the football, men's basketball, and women's tennis programs. USC football vacated two wins from their final two games of the 2004 season (one conference game and a bowl game) and all 12 wins from the 2005 season, as well as the conference titles from both years. Their 2004 BCS National Championship was vacated, while their 2004 Associated Press title was not removed.[185][186][187]

Number of Claimed National Championships, as well as win–loss–tie records, include all seasons played, regardless of conference membership.

Each of the ten schools that were conference members before 2011 has its own in-state, conference rivalry. One is an intracity rivalry (UCLA-USC) and another is within the San Francisco/Oakland metropolitan area (California-Stanford). Colorado and Utah, who joined in 2011, were historic rivals in the Rocky Mountain region prior to 1962 when they suspended the series. These rivalries (and the name given to the football forms) are:

• Arizona–Arizona State – The winner receives the Territorial Cup. The two universities also compete across all sports for the Territorial Cup Series.
• California–Stanford – Known as the Big Game, the winner receives the Stanford Axe.
• Colorado–Utah – Known as the Rumble in the Rockies.
• Oregon–Oregon State – Though not officially recognized by the universities, the Platypus Trophy is awarded to the winning alumni association.
• UCLA–USC – The winner receives the Victory Bell. The two universities compete across all sports for the SoCal BMW Crosstown Cup.
• Washington–Washington State – Known as the Apple Cup, the winner receives Apple Cup trophy.

The most frequently played rivalries in the conference are between Oregon and Oregon State (126 meetings through 2022) and Big Game between Stanford and California (125 meetings). These rivalries are among the most played rivalries in college football.

The two newest members, Colorado and Utah, had a football rivalry that had been dormant since 1962 – both were conference rivals previously in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference (now a Division II conference) and later the now-defunct Mountain States Conference (also known as the Skyline Conference). Even after Colorado joined what became the Big 12 in 1948 (the conference was then known popularly as the Big 7 Conference), the two schools continued their football rivalry for over a decade before ending it after the 1962 season. With the two schools being placed in the same division for football starting in 2011, the rivalry was revived with their 58th meeting during the 2011 season.

All of the California schools consider each other major rivals due to the culture clash between Northern and Southern California.[188] California and UCLA have a rivalry rooted in their shared history as the top programs within the University of California system. Stanford and USC have a rivalry rooted in their shared history as the only private schools in the Pac-12. California and USC also have a long history, playing each other beginning in 1915.

The Pacific Northwest schools of Oregon, Oregon State, Washington, and Washington State all consider each other major rivals due to their proximity and long history; a sweep of the other 3 teams is known as the Northwest Championship. The Oregon–Washington rivalry is sometimes referred to as the Border War.[189]

Arizona and New Mexico have a recently renewed rivalry game, based upon when they were both members of the WAC and both states were longtime territories before being admitted as states in 1912. They played for the Kit Carson Rifle trophy, which was no longer used starting with their meeting in the 1997 Insight Bowl.[190][191]

USC and Notre Dame have an intersectional rivalry (See Notre Dame–USC rivalry). The games in odd-numbered years are played at Notre Dame Stadium in mid-October, while the games in even-numbered years are played at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, usually in late November.

Stanford and Notre Dame also have an intersectional rivalry (See Notre Dame–Stanford football rivalry). The schedule of the Stanford–Notre Dame rivalry mirrors that of USC–Notre Dame. The games in even-numbered years are played at Notre Dame in mid-October, while the games in odd-numbered years are played at Stanford in late November.

The isolated rural campuses of Washington State and Idaho are eight miles (13 km) apart on the Palouse, creating a natural border war known as the Battle of the Palouse. Idaho rejoined FBS in 1996 and was a member until 2017.

Utah and BYU have a fierce rivalry nicknamed the Holy War that goes back to 1896.

Colorado also has a rivalry with in-state rival Colorado State called the Rocky Mountain Showdown.

With the NCAA permanently approving 12-game schedules in college football beginning in 2006, the Pac-10—alone among major conferences in doing so—went to a full nine-game conference schedule. Previously, the schools did not play one non-rival opponent, resulting in an eight-game conference schedule (four home games and four away). In 2010, the last season before the arrival of Colorado and Utah, the only other BCS conference that played a round-robin schedule was the Big East. The schedule consisted of one home and away game against the two schools in each region, plus the game against the primary in-state rival.

On October 21, 2010, the Pac-10 announced the creation of divisions and a championship game in football, to be used when Colorado and Utah joined the conference effective July 1, 2011. The twelve members were split into two divisions for football only: a North Division comprising the Pacific Northwest and Bay Area schools, and a South Division comprising the Mountain Time Zone and Los Angeles schools.[192]

A nine-game conference schedule was maintained, with five games within the assigned division and four games from the opposite division. The four California teams, noted in the table in gray, still played each other every season— consequently, the four non-California teams in each division will only play one of the two California teams from the opposite division each year.

The Pac-12 Football Championship Game featured the North Division Champion against the South Division Champion for the first 11 years of its existence, with divisional champions determined based on record in all conference games (both divisional and cross-divisional). However, on May 18, 2022, the NCAA Division I Council announced that conferences would no longer be required to maintain divisions in order to hold a conference championship. As a result, later that same day, the Pac-12 announced that it would eliminate its divisions for the 2022 football season and beyond, with the championship game instead featuring the two Pac-12 teams with the highest winning percentage.[193] It was the first FBS conference to scrap its divisions as a result of this change.

As of the 2023 college football season, the following is the selection order of bowl games with Pac-12 tie-ins. If a Pac-12 team is selected to participate in the College Football Playoff, all other bowl-eligible teams move up one spot in the order.

In honor of the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the conference, an All-Century Team was unveiled on December 2, 2015, voted on by a panel of coaches, players, and the media.[194]

• Quarterbacks: John Elway, Stanford; Marcus Mariota, Oregon; Jim Plunkett, Stanford; Andrew Luck, Stanford; Matt Leinart, USC
• Running backs: Marcus Allen, USC; O. J. Simpson, USC; Charles White, USC; Reggie Bush, USC; Mike Garrett, USC
• Wide receivers: Keyshawn Johnson, USC; Lynn Swann, USC; Marqise Lee, USC; J. J. Stokes, UCLA; Ken Margerum, Stanford
• Tight ends: Tony Gonzalez, California; Charle Young, USC;
• Offensive line: Jonathan Ogden, UCLA; Ron Yary, USC; Tony Boselli, USC; Anthony Muñoz, USC; Lincoln Kennedy, Washington; Brad Budde, USC; Randall McDaniel, Arizona State
• Defensive ends: Tedy Bruschi, Arizona; Terrell Suggs, Arizona State; Willie McGinest, USC; Andre Carter, California; Jim Jeffcoat, Arizona State
• Defensive tackles: Steve Emtman, Washington; Haloti Ngata, Oregon; Rob Waldrop, Arizona; Leonard Williams, USC; Ed White, California
• Linebackers Junior Seau, USC; Jerry Robinson, UCLA; Ricky Hunley, Arizona; Richard Wood, USC; Chris Claiborne, USC
• Cornerbacks Joey Browner, USC; Mel Renfro, Oregon; Chris McAlister, Arizona; Antoine Cason, Arizona
• Safeties: Ronnie Lott, USC ; Kenny Easley, UCLA; Troy Polamalu, USC; Mark Carrier, USC
• Kicker: Jason Hanson, Washington State
• Punter: Tom Hackett, Utah
• Returner: Reggie Bush, USC
• Coach: John McKay, USC

Note: Bold Italic notes Offensive, Defensive and Coach of the Century selections. The voting panel was made up of 119 former players, coaches and media.[195]

Pac-12 Conference basketball programs have combined to win 15 NCAA men's basketball championships as Pac-12 members, with another member having won a national championship before joining the conference. UCLA has won 11 national championships with Arizona, California, Oregon, Stanford winning one each as Pac-12 members, Utah won one national championship as a member of the Mountain States Conference. Eleven of the twelve Pac-12 schools have advanced to at least 1 final four, with Arizona State the only school that has not made an appearance.

  Members departing for the Big Ten.
  Members departing for the Big 12.
  Members departing for the ACC.

Seasons are listed by the calendar years in which they ended. Italics indicate honors earned before the school competed in the Pac-12.

† denotes overtime games. Multiple †'s indicate more than one overtime.[203]

Commissioners of the forerunner PCC

• Herb Dana (193x–40)
• Edwin N. Atherton[212][213] (1940–44)
• Victor O. Schmidt [214] (1944–59)