Canzano: Implosion of Pac-12 working for nobody -- except Oregon Ducks
How much regret is out there?
The plane carrying Stanford’s football team finally went “wheels-up” well after 10 p.m. ET on Saturday after losing on the road to North Carolina.
It was a 5.5-hour cross-country flight. The aircraft reached the gate at San Francisco International Airport around 1 a.m., then a bus carried players, coaches, and staff on a 30-minute ride back to campus.
This was one of the “early ones” for the Cardinal. Three of their last four road games kicked off after 7 p.m. ET, and didn’t deliver players back to campus until after 3 a.m. in the Bay Area.
“It’s not easy,” said one person on Saturday’s flight.
It doesn’t help that Stanford is winless in its last 11 road trips. Nine of those games were played outside the Pacific Time Zone. But the Cardinal saga underscores what’s happened to the legacy Pac-12 schools that fled to other conferences. The moves may have provided financial security and “Power 4” safety, but it hasn’t worked out on the field (or the tarmac) for almost everyone.
Everyone, that is, except Oregon.
The move to the Big Ten has been a resounding success for the Ducks. They’re a well-funded and highly ranked contender. The UO brand has never been healthier. But Oregon creates its own ecosystem, and that makes me wonder how much regret there will be someday in the Pac-12 footprint.
Washington lost at Wisconsin on Saturday. The Huskies are out of the College Football Playoff picture. USC will soon be out, too, after the Trojans lose at Oregon in two weeks.