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Could Big 12 & Pac-12 consider a merger to compete with SEC?

Dan Wetzel, Pete Thamel and SI's Pat Forde speculate what could come out of the meeting between Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff and Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby this week. Hear the full conversation on the College Football Enquirer. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever you listen.

Video transcript

DAN WETZEL: Max Olson, our friend at "The Athletic," reporting that the Big 12 and the Pac-12 are having a meeting, Bob Bowlsby and George Kliavkoff. I don't know what this meeting could be. They're talking could there be a merger, could there be a scheduling alliance. Certainly, Bowlsby is doing his job. What is the latest, Pete-- you're stateside-- on this meeting that I don't understand? I mean, you got to have the meeting, but I don't see where this is going.

PETE THAMEL: So, basically, this meeting was mutually beneficial and really doesn't amount to very much. Bob Bowlsby has a couple of boards at some of these schools that, you could imagine, have a little bit of hair-trigger tempers, right? So they thought Bob Bowlsby got caught flat-footed. So now Bob Bowlsby has to be on the aggressive course.

George, God bless him, doesn't know what he doesn't know yet, so of course he'll take a meeting with Bob Bowlsby, right? I don't see the benefit of this. Look, you have to look at these decisions going forward not like what's best for the Pac-12. You have to say what's best for USC. Because who's really controlling this? USC. The big brands are controlling this. The notion of this happening is not particularly real, but they went out and took a meeting. So that was nice.

PAT FORDE: Yeah, no, I don't think you want to be in anything like any sort of a formal affiliation with those schools. But I could see, teasing it out, a scheduling alliance possibly being helpful for the Pac-12. But if you can play above the mean, quote, unquote, non-Power Five-- I mean, I guess they're still Power Five schools. I mean, playing Iowa State and Baylor helps you theoretically from a strength of schedule standpoint. And, certainly, it would help Iowa State and Baylor to play teams from the Pac-12 if you can't schedule other people.

So if you're looking for someone to schedule, and say you're supremely pissed at the SEC and don't want to play them, you can continue to play Big Ten teams, which the Pac-12 does on fairly regular occasion. But working some of these schools in here and increasing your strength of schedule, which has been a concern for the Pac-12 because their own league just isn't that good, I think it might be prudent to look at. No, I would not want to join a conference if I'm one of the California schools with some of the flotsam and jetsam from the Big 12. But scheduling with them, yeah, I might do it.

PETE THAMEL: Co-opting my terms now, Pat?

DAN WETZEL: Yeah.

PAT FORDE: Yeah, it's a good term.

DAN WETZEL: Flotsam and jetsam.

PAT FORDE: Yeah.

DAN WETZEL: I got to tell you, I just don't understand the concept of the scheduling alliance at all. First off, USC and Oregon already go and just play whoever the hell they want. Everybody wants to play those guys. Almost everyone wants to play Cal. Cal is one of those great games because it sounds good. We're playing California, right? Even if you go home and home, you're probably gonna win. I just don't think-- is it that hard for the Pac-12 teams to go schedule a game?

PAT FORDE: Well, no, but for the same reason you're looking at why teams want to schedule the Pac-12 is you're getting a decent name that you can beat theoretically.

DAN WETZEL: Oh, I get it if you're the Big 12.

PAT FORDE: But I get it if you're the Pac-12.

DAN WETZEL: Because you're basically trying to prop up the bottom of your league, and then you're telling USC that you're gonna get looped in somehow unless you come up with a scheduling alliance that doesn't include the four good teams in the league. Maybe that's it.

PAT FORDE: Right.

DAN WETZEL: They never play 1AAs at USC or UCLA.

PETE THAMEL: I think it's more like power in numbers. Because, ultimately, this whole premier league thing, it comes down to owning all the rights, dominating all the rights, and then leveraging that into the biggest TV deal possible. And so I guess it would be, what, 20 is better than 12, right? Or 20 is better than eight.

PAT FORDE: Yeah. I mean, yes. To Dan's point, if you're going to go to market as a combined entity, that might be the best play. I mean, that might be the best reason to enter into any sort of agreement between these two conferences. They've got to be looking out for each other to a degree because we know that the two biggest dogs aren't, the Big Ten and the SEC.

And I think the ACC probably feels like, if need be, they can get by as is. The Pac-12 and Big 12, I would certainly-- if I'm George Kliavkoff, I happily take the meeting. And if I'm Bob Bowlsby-- even if it's just, hey, look at me, I'm busy out here trying to save us-- I certainly take the meeting.