The past seven months have produced a barrage of highs and lows for Washington State and Oregon State, the schools left behind in the realignment game.
The College Football Playoff’s revenue distribution model, which allocated varying amounts to the conferences, had relegated WSU and OSU to fourth-rate status.That was just 20 percent of the $1.8 million shares negotiated for each Group of Five school , and it was roughly 95 percent less than the amount WSU and OSU collect currently and members of the Pac-12.
Oregon claimed the automatic bid while Colorado joined Arizona and WSU in the at-large field, albeit barely. The Buffaloes were the third-to-last team voted into the event. And anything that creates more realignment at the power conference level is good news for the Cougars and Beavers. Uncertainty over the structure of the sport is the building block of the ‘Pac-2’ strategy: Remain as flexible as possible for as long as possible in case everything crumbles and opportunities surface.