Oregon State and Washington State are working on a plan to keep the Pac-12 alive as a two-team conference for as long as two years while entering an agreement with the Mountain West Conference that would allow the Pacific Northwest schools to fill out their sports schedules, two people with knowledge of the situation told The Associated Press on Thursday.
The agreement could set the stage for a long-term deal between Oregon State and Washington State and the Mountain West, but what that would look like is unlikely to be determined soon, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the neither the schools nor the Mountain West are making their negotiations and internal discussions public.
In the short term, Oregon State and Washington State would get the clarity about conference affiliation they need to give their coaches, athletes and recruits. The Mountain West would get a payout from the schools and alignment with programs that have been competitive at the Power Five level.
Oregon State is currently ranked 10th in football in The Associated Press Top 25 and 11th in the College Football Playoff rankings.
One of the people said if an agreement with the Mountain West cannot be reached, Oregon State and Washington State are still comfortable with operating as a two-team Pac-12 after the other 10 schools depart this summer. But the person acknowledged filling out schedules for more than a dozen sports that each school sponsors would be challenging.
Oregon State and Washington State won a significant legal victory earlier this week that gave them sole control of the Pac-12 and potentially hundreds of millions in assets, paving the way for them to move forward on clarifying their plans for conference affiliation.
The Pac-12 and departing schools, led by Washington, appealed the ruling to the state Supreme Court. The higher court on Thursday granted a temporary stay of the preliminary injunction until an emergency stay can be ruled upon.
Oregon State and Washington State have until Nov. 28 to respond.
“The departing schools are only delaying the inevitable because the superior court clearly got it right: Under the bylaws, the Conference’s future must be decided by the schools that stay, not those that are leaving,” Oregon State and Washington State said in a joint statement.
In the meantime, a temporary restraining order put in place by the lower court on Sept. 11 remains, which means no business can be conducted in the Pac-12 without unanimous consent by all 12 members.
The stay did not come as a surprise to Washington State and Oregon State and is not expected to slow their efforts to keep the Pac-12 open and partner with the Mountain West, the two people said.
The Mountain West comprises Air Force, Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, Hawaii, New Mexico, Nevada, UNLV, Utah State, San Diego State, San Jose State and Wyoming.
The Pac-12 was ravaged by conference realignment over the last two years, starting with USC and UCLA announcing in 2022 that they would join the Big Ten in 2024.
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This past summer, in the span of about a month, Washington and Oregon revealed plans to also join the Big Ten; Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah said they would join the Big 12; and Stanford and California announced they were moving to the Atlantic Coast Conference.
That left Oregon State and Washington State on their own, facing a daunting future with dramatically reduced revenue streams.
School leaders determined the best path forward was to try to rebuild the Pac-12, which has two years left of multimillion-dollar payouts from the Rose Bowl and College Football Playoff.
Exit fees in other conferences would make it difficult for other schools to join the Pac-12 on short notice.
Because the NCAA allows a two-year grace period for a conference to operate with as few as two schools, Oregon State and Washington State could do that for 2024 and possibly 2025.
The plan being worked on would call for Oregon State and Washington State to play schedules mostly against Mountain West schools, though neither would be eligible for the conference championship.
In football, that would mean at least six games each against Mountain West schools for the Beavers and Cougars over the next two years.