Oregon, Washington bolting Pac-12 to join Big Ten

The Pac-12 is on the verge of losing two more prominent programs. Oregon and Washington are reportedly set to join the Big Ten, according to college football writer Brett McMurphy.

It will be another devastating blow to the Pac-12. It is already set to lose USC and UCLA to the Big Ten next season, while Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah are all either on their way to the Big 12 or could eventually join that conference in the very near future.

All of that realignment could leave California, Stanford, Oregon State and Washington State as the remaining Pac-12 teams as their conference continues to lose teams. 

From a business and television rights standpoint, this is obviously huge news for the new power conferences that will be the Big Ten and the Big 12. They will have coast-to-coast coverage with some of the most prominent college football programs in the country and have a chance to feature new matchups and build new rivalries — all while bringing in huge money.  

For as good as it will be for those two conferences, it has a chance to be a huge loss for fans of both the remaining schools in the Pac-12 and the schools that are moving on to greener pastures. 

Rivalries are one of the biggest parts of college sports, and assuming these moves all happen, college football could lose some of its best and most passionate games, including the Civil War between Oregon and Oregon State and the Apple Cup between Washington and Washington State. 

Getting the occasional matchup between Oregon and Ohio State or USC and Penn State might make for a compelling game and a big TV draw, but it is not going to provide the same juice that those other rivalry games give on a yearly basis no matter what the teams' records are. That's only as it relates to the big rivalries and the big matchups. 

Are Oregon fans going to want to potentially wake up for an 8 a.m. kickoff to see their team play a road game at Rutgers? Who wins in that situation? Imagine knowing that as a Washington fan you might lose out on your yearly game with Washington State so you can instead see the Huskies host a 2-7 Indiana team on a random November Saturday. Get excited for that! 

In the end college football is just like any other business. Money talks the loudest. Everything else takes a back seat.