Washington State president on realignment: 'College athletics is at its worst'

Washington State finds itself between the rock and a hard place known as conference realignment.

The Pac-12, which Wazzou has been a part of since 1917, is dead. USC and UCLA were already on their way out the door to the Big Ten and now Oregon and Washington are following behind. 

With Colorado, Arizona, Arizona State and Utah now heading to the Big 12, the once proud "Conference of Champions" only has Cal, Stanford, Oregon State and Washington State left.

Four teams a conference does not make, which means Washington State finds itself without a home and plenty of questions looking ahead to the future. School president Kirk Schulz recently told ESPN that his athletic program is "in a bad spot" as it tries to navigate this new normal.

To say that this was a surprising turn of events would be an understatement, at least according to Schulz. As early as last week, there was apparently optimism that Oregon and Washington would commit to a new television deal and the league would move forward.

That hope was quickly shut down during a president's call last Friday morning, though.

"It's like a breakup; it's awkward," Schultz told ESPN regarding the call. "No one wants to sit there for too long."

As far as what the future looks like, Wazzou did hire a consultant to help the athletic department explore options. Among those options are adding programs to a new-look Pac-12 or simply joining up with an existing conference like the Mountain West or even the AAC.

Either way, though, last Friday's turn of events can only be looked at as a negative for Washington State. In fact, Schultz opines that it was a bad day for college sports as a whole.

"I don't ever remember a single day unfolding that was so dramatic in changing the landscape," he said. "College athletics is at its worst with this realignment stuff. Everyone is truly looking out for themselves. What it also does is changes behavior and people stop being honest with each other."