Where will Stanford, Cal and the rest of the Pac-12 leftovers land? | College Football Enquirer

Yahoo Sports’ Dan Wetzel and Ross Dellenger, and Sports Illustrated’s Pat Forde hop on the College Football Enquirer to discuss the ‘Desperate Four’ of Stanford, Cal, Oregon State and Washington State, and debate what options are available for those programs in the wake of the collapse of the Pac-12.

Video transcript

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DAN WETZEL: All right. What's the latest on the PAC-4? Pat, what are you hearing from the Conference of Champion?

PAT FORDE: Boy, I heard a lot over the weekend. I mean I will say I probably had conversations with a half dozen people. And most of those conversations went quickly to, first, from what the hell happened, how could, we do this, to are we really going to do this to Stanford and Cal? And the single number one producer of American Olympians in Stanford and the number four producer of American Olympians in Cal were just being kicked to the curb here.

Everyone is talking to everyone. Every single conference that thinks they have any sniff at getting any of the PAC-4 is making phone calls. And if you're part of the desperate four, you're taking the phone calls and making your own. I've heard that there is a redoubled effort perhaps from the Bay Area schools to try to get into the Big Ten thinking if you're at 18, you're going to go to 20.

I have heard that there was some dalliance back and forth between those two and the ACC. But I don't expect that to go anywhere. So the options are not very appealing. I mean, I don't think Cal, or Stanford-- well, Oregon State, Washington State may want to be in a Mountain West or think that is their best option. Cal and Stanford don't like that option very much. What they can do, I don't know. If you can find a good solution, let me know and let them know because they don't have one.

ROSS DELLENGER: Yeah. They are limited with good options. I think there's three probably leagues to watch here. Pat mentioned some of them there like obviously the Mountain West, the American Athletic Conference, and the ACC.

The Mountain West makes the most sense as far as geographic and cultural kind of fits that there would be some kind of merger, or acquisition, or something with the PAC-4 or the PAC-3. Maybe a lot of thought is Stanford goes independent and maybe the three go roll into the Mountain West. Maybe they rebrand PAC, Pacific Mountain whatever 14, 13. So there's that.

The AAC I think probably has one of the better TV situations of the group of five so you wonder if those West Coast teams would be interested at all in a merger there. It would hard to see that because I think just geographically the travel and all that, those schools don't seem to want to do that. Now could they go pluck off some American teams? That's kind of a question. And in the ACC option, which I agree with Pat I think is very much a long shot. And so yeah, the options are incredibly limited. And I think it's just a tough spot they're in.