College football has changed a lot over the past few years with conference expansion, NIL, and the transfer portal. And one prominent college football expert doesn’t think those massive changes are over.
This week, college football expert Paul Finebaum joined McElroy in the Cubelic in the Morning where he was asked point blank if he thought the Pac-12 conference would exist by 2026.
Finebaum had a brutally honest response.
“I don’t believe so. I don’t know how it can, Greg,” Finebaum said according to On3. “Because it’s — the situation is so fragile right now. The leadership is better than it was. It’s still not very good. And, you know, I think you give the new commissioner, George Kliavkoff, a pass because maybe a year, a year and a half ago, his predecessor literally ran this thing into the ground. But he’s had enough time and I think, so far, you have to give him a failing grade.”
Finebaum ultimately predicts that other conferences will poach Pac-12 schools away and the conference will cease to exist by 2026.
“And ultimately, as much as big conferences don’t really want to expand at the moment, I think they’ll be forced to take the cream of the crop out there, whether it’s the Big Ten going after the northwest schools, whether it’s Colorado or Arizona or somebody else just deciding to go to the Big 12 — I do not believe the Pac-12 can exist,” Finebaum said.
It’s certainly a bleak outlook for one of college football’s premier conferences.
[On3]
