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SALT LAKE CITY — Barely seven months after the team's best accomplishment, which was winning its first-ever Pac-12 championship followed by playing in the glorious Rose Bowl, Utah football is in a perilous situation.
Thanks to the defections of USC and UCLA to the Big Ten in two years, the remaining 10 athletic programs were put in a collective tenuous position forced to scramble for survival. The dream that began in time for the 2011-12 academic year may turn into a nightmare.
That's the standard line of thinking as the future turns uncertain. Utah's administration must sift through options that include staying intact with a new version of the Pac-10, which also could expand, or look for a new home.
Basically, the Utes can ride out the changes within the conference or jump to the Big 12 along with other Pac-12 teams. Joining the Big Ten or Southeastern Conference doesn't seem likely, at least not in the short term.
Nearly two weeks after the USC and UCLA news broke, the story still is a bombshell and will be a hot topic during Big 12 media days that begin Wednesday. The singular Pac-12 media day is July 29.
"I was as shocked and as surprised as any of the fans out there when all this hit with USC and UCLA," longtime college football broadcaster Tim Brando said during a radio interview on The Zone. "The timing of it was shocking. It was a seismic move."
But all is not lost for the beleaguered Pac-12. Access to the playoff has got to go beyond the Big Ten and SEC.
Surely, given all their success, the Utes deserve a place at the table. The program has too much going for it to be excluded, especially after the playoff expands beyond four teams.
"Stop worrying about jumping off cliffs in the Mountain time zone," Brando said. "You're going to be OK."
One intriguing option is to merge the Big 12 and remaining Pac-12 teams to form a super conference. Some coaches in both conferences contend the football would be strong enough to merit access to the expected playoff expansion — in a sense becoming the third of three major conferences.
Using last season's final Associated Press Top 25, seven teams total from both conferences finished ranked. They range from No. 4 Cincinnati to No. 22 Oregon and include Baylor, Oklahoma State, Utah, Houston and BYU.
"The playoff, by adding eight additional teams will be more inclusive than exclusive," Brando said. "Yet, I think fans are hearing, 'Well, it's the big two,' which is a media-made title. Those teams are not currently either in the Big Ten or the SEC.
"They're still as much a part of the future of college football as they've ever been. It's just the financial structure is changing, and it's up to the people leading both the Pac-12 and Big 12 to understand that."
For sure, any form of a new Big 12 or Pac-12 won't generate the same amount of money off television contracts. The Big Ten and SEC will get the biggest slices of the pie, creating distinct advantages that have already existed for decades.
Taking the positive, for all the forthcoming disruption, change is coming to the less-than-satisfying playoff. Adding more teams is good, if for no other reason than players are less likely to opt out of playing in the postseason as several Ohio State players did in the Rose Bowl against Utah.
"In the grand scheme of things, the postseason still sucks," Brando said. "It sucks bad. College football's postseason remains the worst in American sports. I think we're on our way to fixing that. The big picture, I think, is going to improve. It's going to take a little time."
