Canzano: Pac-12 refused to just 'go away'
OSU and WSU did not listen to critics.
They were told to go away.
To give up.
“Why even bother to try?” the naysayers said.
Oregon State and Washington State were ditched by 10 departing legacy Pac-12 members, marginalized by the establishment, and left to sift through the wreckage alone.
A lawsuit before that folksy judge, Gary Libey, in the Whitman County Courthouse. A $255 million settlement. I’ll never forget having breakfast with Commissioner Teresa Gould at a diner in Salem a couple of football seasons ago and watching her talk about the fight for survival with glassy eyes.
“Coffee,” Gould said to the server, “and please, keep it coming.”
So it must have been some measure of satisfaction for those involved at Pac-12 headquarters to release the 2026 football schedule on Wednesday. The conference did it with an “After Dark” twist, bucking conventional public relations strategy with a 6:30 p.m. reveal.
There was much more at play here, wasn’t there?