Pac-12 Football Could Become the New Big East

This Thursday at 6pm at Autzen Stadium in Eugene, Oregon takes on visiting California. The significance of the game is not just that its Thursday, but more importantly the 6pm game marks the first game of three for the Pac 12 on Thursday on ESPN.

A national TV audience, the stage only shared with a little bit of MLB postseason, is designed to bring a lot more national attention to the conference—which is good. I am worried however that the Thursday national attention could turn Pac 12 football into the new Big East. Let my own biases about the Big East serve as a caveat for what I don’t want to happen to the Pac 12 nationally.

Thursday games help with the arenas of revenue and exposure, both of which the Pac 12 is in dire need of. But as a Pac 12 alumnus I am worried that commissioner Larry Scott and company could lose in the arena of public opinion.

Right now, my general impression is that fans do not think the Pac 12 is as good as the SEC for sure, which is not a point I am going to debate today as the SEC has won the last 5 national championships. But fans often don’t think the Pac 12 is generally as good as the Big 12, Big 10, and occasionally ACC. The week 3 ESPN conference rankings have the Pac 12 ranked 4th after being 5-4 nonconference that week. This may or not be accurate—that’s not the point.

While at times the Pac 12s ranking is high and reputation is stellar, I think it is always temporary. It fluctuates greatly, and quickly. I believe, and I think Larry Scott would agree, that it is largely because the rest of the country doesn’t watch Pac 12 games. They are usually broadcast regionally on cable, and if they are late games much of the country is not staying up to watch them (eh hem. . . Kornheiser). I find it difficult to get a lasting impression of a team (or conference) if I haven’t watched them play. Only looking at the box score and, even if ESPN did have highlights of the Pac 12 games, the highlight reels often leave much to be desired.

Big East games are regularly played on national television. As a result I have a very formed opinion on the quality of Big East football.

But despite this, I couldn’t for one figure out who is in the Big East. After some research, I realized that the Big East basketball conference was largely the same as the Big East football conference. Given the conference’s level of success in basketball I was surprised there was a correlation between football and basketball in the Big East. Despite this being my present opinion of Big East football, I do remember a time not very long ago though, when I hustled to the TV wanting to see the outcome of Rutgers vs. Louisville on Thursday night.

In 2004, Boston College was the Big East champion at 9-3 overall, and 4-2 in the conference. However, that was the last year before they left for the ACC, and fellow former Big East schools Miami and Virginia Tech bolted to the ACC a year earlier. Without its most successful schools the Big East was in trouble, and was in serious need of contenders, fast. As a response to the departing schools, they added Louisville (11-1 in ’04 and 6th ranked nationally) and Cincinnati to the football portion of their regularly scheduled sports programming.

Unexpectedly, but very necessarily for the conference they got what they needed with the success of Rich Rod and West Virginia in 2005. They went 11-1 , unbeaten in the conference, and won the Nokia Sugar Bowl against SEC champion Georgia. Freshmen Steve Slaton and Pat White were unexpected victors that day, as the nationally disrespected Mountaineers ran all over the Bulldogs. At the time they beat no. 19 ranked Louisville in the middle of the season in triple overtime, they were only ranked 25th.

This victory gave the Big East some unexpected life, and they capitalized on it in 2006 with what could be the best season in Big East football. But more so, they made it into the biggest stage of Big East football ever. They moved their marquee games for the season to Thursday nights.

On Thursday November 2, 2006, 5th ranked and still unbeaten Louisville defeated 3rd ranked and previously unbeaten West Virginia. This was a perfect storm of fan and media interest. West Virginia’s Sugar Bowl win coupled with the promise for drama (last year’s triple overtime game against Louisville) set the table for a nationally televised game between two top 5 teams. ESPNs’ ratings for the Thursday game were a record 5.3 share, which translates roughly to 4.91 million households which tuned in. . One week later, on Thursday November 9, 2006 Rutgers played Louisville in front of 5.0 share, an estimated 4.62 million households.

The games drew such a big audience because if any of these 3 teams stayed undefeated they would have had the inside track to the national title game. As it turns out every team but Ohio State (and Boise State) lost at least one game that season. Additionally they were exciting games too. I remember the team meeting I was in ending early so we could watch Rutgers kick a game winning field goal with 13 seconds left to defeat Louisville 28-25 and knock them out of national title contention.

So thus far, it does not look possible for the Pac 12 to get this kind of exposure and it be a bad thing. But over the years, I believe the Big East has gotten considerably worse from top to bottom. And the perception of that is even stronger than it is true. So on Thursdays fans often can witness and remember this state of affairs. Thursday games no longer look like a showcase of top teams, but rather a desperate strategy to get viewers.

The reason for that is poor results outside of the conference. Last season the Big East sent 8-5 Uconn to the BCS to be blown out by Oklahoma. The whole conference was 0-10 against the top 30 in the country as well. Bowl wins against South and North Carolina in ‘09 are good results, but losses like #8 West Virginia at East Carolina in ‘08 are more the norm for a conference regularly ranked as the worst AQ conference. Now when there’s a nationally televised Big East game, even if its competitive, the automatic assumption is these are two bad teams playing each other and I tune them out.

I don’t want this to happen to the Pac 12 conference. This can all be avoided by, most importantly, winning games outside the conference, and secondly having compelling games within the conference.

The Pac 12 does not have a reputation at present. With the inconsistent national exposure the Pac 12s reputation fluctuates greatly from year to year and even game to game. But you can bet after this season with these Thursday games it will have a reputation.

The Pac 12 could get unprecedented exposure this season with Oregon coming off of a national title appearance and still running over people, and the consensus best player in the country playing for the Cardinal. Despite games being late, Thursday games will get an uncharacteristically large amount of exposure for the Pac 12. The Pac 12s big new TV deal begins next August as well. This is a crossroads time for Pac 12 football.

Besides the Oregon v. Cal game, other Thursday games featured this season include next week’s Oct. 13th Cal v. USC game at AT&T Park in SF, and the next week’s Oct. 20th matchup of UCLA at Arizona. Granted these games aren’t the high profile games presented by the Big East in 2006, nor the anticipated Nov. 12th Stanford v. Oregon rematch, but they’re the games being played. These games will have to be good enough to warrant the increased exposure compared to a midday game on your regional Fox Sports channel.

The Thursday games are great for both short-term revenue and exposure. Even though we have a pretty short memory as fans, I’m just concerned over the long-term reputation of the conference. Increased exposure brings increased judgment. Larry Scott, I hope this works.