With Colorado jumping ship early and making the Pac-10 the Pac-12 in 2011, the conference was quickly faced with the task of creating divisions.
While the schools' athletic directors aren't planning to meet until Oct. 6-7, a time when they will discuss just how to split up the 12 teams, Chip Brown (of course) is already reporting that the "Pac-10 North division will be Was, WSU, Ore, Ore St., CU and Utah. South will be Cali and Arizona schools." Or, this:
North Division
Washington
Washington State
Oregon
Oregon State
Colorado
UtahSouth Division
Stanford
California
USC
UCLA
Arizona
Arizona State
While that certainly seems to be the easiest form of alignment, there are two other options still being discussed apparently. One is the "zipper concept," which would put natural rivals in opposite divisions. The other is the "pod" scheduling idea, which would still use two, six-team divisions, split on the north/south line, but would rotate the yearly matchups.
Pod 1: NW schools.
Pod 2: CA schools.
Pod 3: AZ and MTN schools.Each year, you'd play everyone in your pod and three of the four teams in each of the other pods. (For instance: The NW schools would play three of the four CA schools every year.)
Once the divisions are settled, the focus will then shift to planning a championship game, and picking a neutral site to play host. apparently the finalists are Phoenix (Glendale), Los Angeles, Seattle, San Francisco, Oakland, San Diego ... and Las Vegas.
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Take it from a Big Ten fan
DO NOT follow the Big Ten’s lead here. Do the sensible thing and split on geography, keep rivals in the same division. The “pod” system is idiotic, as it leaves a possibility that you wouldn’t play everyone in your division.
by SpartanDan on Sep 23, 2010 11:43 AM EDT reply actions
zipper plan is the best option
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by Jeremy Mauss on Sep 23, 2010 1:44 PM EDT reply actions
The numbers don't work out in this description of the pods
unless the AZ and MTN schools play all division rivals and each other every year.
This leaves only one game for the crossover pod.
Utah and Colorado would then get four games with the NW, two with AZ and one with each other. This leaves one game with a California team each year.
The description above makes sense, if the scope of the statement is limited to the NW and CA schools. They would have three games in their pod, two against their division rivals, three against the other NW or CA pod and one against the crossover AZ/MTN teams.
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by Ben Prather on Sep 23, 2010 11:44 PM EDT reply actions
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