Realignment rumor mill has ‘some value’ for WSU and Oregon State, commissioner says
Jon WilnerAug. 12, 2024 at 1:33 pmNot a week goes by, it seems, without Washington State and Oregon State being the subject of realignment rumors. It could be as simple as a message board riff or a tweet on X. Maybe it’s an anonymous quote published by the mainstream media.
A few have morsels of credibility, while some are pure nonsense. But all are welcomed by Pac-12 commissioner Teresa Gould, who’s working closely with the Cougars and Beavers as they plot a course forward.
“Part of that is not bad,” Gould told ‘Canzano and Wilner: The Podcast’ last week during a wide-ranging interview.
“All that buzz on social media and all that interest and the rumor mill and all of that, there certainly is some value in it from the perspective of, that means we have communities who care about what we’re doing …
“We want passionate fans across college sports that care about what we’re doing. From that perspective, it’s good.”
The Cougars and Beavers have until the summer of 2026 to find a permanent conference home and two fairly straightforward options available. They can rebuild the Pac-12 with schools from the Mountain West (and perhaps other Group of Five leagues), or they can join the Mountain West.
The roads back into the power conferences are vastly more complicated and far less certain. And occasionally, Gould said, the reports about behind-the-scenes machinations — either real or imagined — create messes that she must clean up.
“The rumors are challenging when they aren’t accurate and when there’s misinformation out there,” she said. “At times, it becomes difficult to manage relationships, expectations, anxieties and all these other things when there’s misinformation. It’s part of the world we’re living in now.
“The good news is I have really strong communication with (WSU and OSU), and they are kept well-briefed on what’s going on and what’s not going on.”
For the moment, Gould explained, she is “spending a lot of time” finalizing the 2025 football schedules for the Cougars and Beavers.
The scheduling arrangement with the Mountain West this season includes an option for next year if both sides agree, Gould said.
But earlier this month, the Hotline reported that WSU and OSU are in discussions with multiple conferences — in both the Power Four and the Group of Five — about strategic partnerships that could take effect as early as 2025.
Those discussions, an industry source said, aren’t specific to membership opportunities for WSU and OSU, although that option “definitely” has not been dismissed.
Instead, the conversations include possible scheduling alliances or “creative ways to work together” that could provide “a stepping stone to the future,” the source added. “It’s all at a very broad level.”
Gould declined to discuss specific options for the Cougars and Beavers. But eventual membership in the ACC, despite the geography — and despite speculation on X — might be more likely than an invitation to the Big 12.
If Clemson and Florida State win their lawsuits against the ACC and are free to join other leagues, North Carolina could follow them out the door.
At that point, the depleted conference might seek to fortify its membership. WSU and OSU would offer quality football brands, create additional Pacific Time Zone kickoff windows and ease the bicoastal travel for Cal and Stanford, the only ACC schools west of the Rockies.
For now, the Cougars and Beavers are watching the situation play out.
“Moving forward, regardless of what that scenario is — and there are a lot of different iterations or scenarios out there — we’ll continue to overturn every stone we know of, and try to create some stones we don’t know of, to figure out what scenarios are possible,” Gould said.
“I don’t think there is a foregone conclusion about what is best, because we’re still evaluating what is possible.”
Jon Wilner
