It's more than likely that Colorado-Utah will be a Thanksgiving weekend game (with the now-non conference Utah-BYU being played a week earlier). It would be fitting if they played under snowy conditions too. But what if snow does not fall? Could artificial snow then be brought in?

As for the divisional alignment, I think North-South should work, but only if all the CA schools are placed in the South. Fans there will probably complain about the prospect of not playing each other every year.

I also reiterate my support for having the first conference championship game in Denver as a way to welcome the new members.

And what role will Utah's "Utes" nickname play in the current members be willing to visit Rice-Eccles. The Pacific Coast states are big on Native American affairs. California has the most Native American residents among states. They were successful in making Stanford drop the Indians nickname decades ago. And even though Utah has the approval of both the Ute tribe and the NCAA to use the nickname, I think it should go. Teams with Native American nicknames and mascots are perpetuating bad stereotypes, and can corrupt young children.

On another note, the zipper plan could work to some extent, just as long as the schedule format allows for two permanent cross-division rivals (which would be in the same region; ex. the California schools).

pf9, bring in artifical snow for a college fb game? Why? So the grounds crew can clean the playing field and maintenance sweep the seats, shovel the ailes, and plow the parking lots?

I don't think the Utes mascot is corrupting.

Unless major scheduling concessions are made, it is unlikely a North - South with all 4 Cal schools in the same division occurs. From the sounds of things, what was posted in the mercurynews and echoed in Tucsons paper is that the half zipper seems to have more traction now. That would leave the four mountain schools, and four northwest schools together in their own divisions and then split 1 northern and 1 southern Cal school into each of the two divisions. Given the desire to continue a 9 game FB schedule this could work.

As for the Utes nickname. UU uses that name with specific permission from the Ute tribe. There is no friction there, and therefore it is not likely to cause any next summer when UU becomes an active conference member.

My idea of the zipper plan is that the Pac-10 goes the ACC route, if you know what I mean.

This may have already been thought about bit why not have the Oregon schools, Washington schools, cal and Stanford in the northern division and everyone else in the south. play 9 conference game 5 in their division an 4 against the other division. The 4 outside of the division are home and away. then 2 are removed for the other 2 members. The conference championship can be set in LA also.

_________________
Fan of:
Sun Belt Conference
Summit League
Us National Soccer Team

I was thinking more along the lines of:

A/B
Arizona/Arizona State
Cal/Stanford
Colorado/Utah
Oregon/Oregon State
UCLA/USC
Washington/Washington State

(not necessarily in that exact set-up)

Here are the permanent cross-division rivals:
Cal/Stanford-UCLA/USC
Oregon/Oregon State-Washington/Washington State
Arizona/Arizona State-Colorado/Utah

Add two rotating cross-division games and we got ourselves a schedule format

I think the conference championship game should not be permanently given to one site, but move each year. The first game should be in Denver to welcome the new members.

Welcome partys are all well and good, but I think the Pac-10 would prefer to have the championship game in a warm weather/destination city in the middle of winter. Especially since you have the #2 DMA in Los Angeles in the fold. Perhaps a rotation to Phx or SF in time, but I'd put all my money on the inaugural game being in LA.

_________________


@ncaasports csi.com/facebook


Like the new CSI Userbar? Feel free to use it here and any other forums.
You can save and host it yourself or link from here.

46566 the plan you suggest was also one of the first suggested at the media level. The problem with it is that UW is very adament on playing an LA school every year. And while UW has been in the dumps for the last decade I believe they still carry a bit of weight.

PF9 the full zipper does not have a lot of traction because the current Pac-10 plays a rivalry week at the end of the year. With a full zipper the liklihood that two schools meet in rivalry week, and then the following week for the title is much more likely. Moving the rivalry games earlier in the year is thought to diminish the importance of those games.

In the end I think that either the North/South split that 46566 suggests or the North/South + Half Zip occurs. There is talk of no divisions for other sports, not sure if that means trying to maintain home-home full round robin for hoops, but if so that is 4 non-conference games eliminated, which would not be good.

Quinn the only concern I have heard with LA is that will most likely mean the Rose Bowl, which also means if the Pac-10/12 champ is not BCS title game bound will then play 2 straight games at the Rose Bowl. Not sure why this would be an issue but it has been said to be a concern. I think in the end you are right LA at the Rose Bowl, and maybe that City of Industry stadium if it is ever built.

Indeed, it would be 2 straight games. But there would be 1 month in between games since the championship would be on Sat. Dec. 3rd and the Rose Bowl on Jan 1st. So it's not like it would be back to back weeks or anything.

_________________


@ncaasports csi.com/facebook


Like the new CSI Userbar? Feel free to use it here and any other forums.
You can save and host it yourself or link from here.

I like the idea of either the "zipper" or the "half zipper" along with 9 conference games. If Colorado, Utah and the Arizona schools consent, that plan will allow annual games between all close rivals and bi-annual meetings of all others.

For example, Washington would play WSU, Oregon and Oregon St annually along with one each from (1)the Bay Area (2) LA (3) Arizona and (4) the mountains. The other four teams would be played every other year. So, Washington would have its annual game with a LA school, just not in LA each year. They would make 3 appearances in LA over 4 years.

The only injustice would be that split between playing seven schools annually and four bi-annually.

Quinn that is why I don't see back to back games at the Rose Bowl as a problem myself. For whatever reason some of the media out west here seem to think it is an issue. And I would add that I think the UW at least would be ecstatic with the chance to play 3-4 games in LA in a single season (however unlikely that may be)

Westwolf in the Half Zipper the UW would play annually WSU, UO, OSU, 1 Bay area, and 1 LA in the 'North' division, they would then play 4 of the 6 schools in ths 'South' division. So for every three year period they would play each of the 'South' schools twice. This is of course assuming we do not go with the idea of permanent rivals. Which I think is unbalanced. As for how to split the California schools in the Half Zipper format I think you go Cal/UCLA and Stanford/USC. So you keep the UC schools together, and the Private Cal schools together.

Edwardgr -

So now you may have mollified the Washington / Oregon 4 and given them almost annual recruiting trips to SoCal.

However in the process, you've broken up 2 big pairs of rivals....
Cal (Berkeley) / Stanford would lose their annual game, and so would USC / UCLA.

I think the SEC did a [sort-of] geographic split, and made one of 3 annual inter-divisional games a rivalry (if I'm not mistaken). So with an 8 game schedule, they play 5 intra-division, the inter-division rival, and 2 of the other 5 inter-divsion teams (so it takes 5 years to play those 5 home and away). I THINK I have that right... correct me if I'm wrong.

If the PAC did your half-zipper and a 9 game schedule (including a rivalry),
I suppose each Washington / Oregon school gets a rivalry with an Arizona or Colorado / Utah school.
USC and UCLA are rivals, as are Cal and Stanford.
So each year, each team plays 5 intra-division games (including 1 northern California team and 1 southern California team), the inter-division rival, and 3 of the other 5 inter-division teams it would take 3-1/3 years to play each of those 5 home and away).
I'm thinking this might be more palatable to the California schools.

What do you think ?

Uh oops . Good point tute. Yes one permanent cross over will be needed to ensure Cal-Stanford, and USC-UCLA play every year. Had not thought that bit out when I said a permanent rival was a bad idea. Perhaps you even go 2 "permanent" rivals in each with the Oregon and Washington schools swapping permanent rivals every so oten, and the Cal schools always having each other as other permanent rivals. So for example.

'North' of UW/WSU/UO/OSU/Cal/UCLA
'South' of UA/ASU/CU/UU/USC/Stan

Cal and UCLA would always have USC and Stan as permanent rivals
UW/WSU and UO/OSU could have say 4 years of playing either the Arizona schools or UU/CU pair every year while alternating between the other 2 pairs on a yearly basis. I think this could work because none of the Northwest schools have what you could call a deep permanent rivalry with any of the 4 mountain schools beyond the fact that we are all conference mates anyway.

So I revise my statement, a single permanent rival is bad, a pair of 'permanent' rivals is good .

With all the different scenarios the Pac-10 is considering, it still comes down to the non-CA schools demanding to play in CA every year. A bit selfish, but to each their own.

But it seems that it would make just as much sense if more work were put on the scheduling side, versus the actual alignment.

For instance, you could have a regional split (which would make sense) with:
North: UW, WSU, Oregon, OSU, Utah, Colorado
South: Stanford, Cal, USC, UCLA, Arizona, ASU

If each school will play 9 of the other 11 schools every year, then it should be fairly easy to create a schedule that would ensure that all 6 north schools will travel TO SoCal every year since a school will only fail to play 2 south schools a year. Just create the schedule to make sure that UCLA and USC are on your schedule every other year, it's that simple, right?

_________________


@ncaasports csi.com/facebook


Like the new CSI Userbar? Feel free to use it here and any other forums.
You can save and host it yourself or link from here.

Not so easy, Quinn. Try sketching it out. The 4 NW schools would use up all 4 cross-divisional games for both UCLA and USC, leaving no opportunity for Colorado or Utah to play the LA schools.

I maintain that the complete zipper, 9 game schedule works best. For example, Washington would play:

Oregon, California, UCLA, Arizona, Utah, Wash St and Oregon St annually. (The first 5 are divisional & the last 2 permanent crossover)
Plus Stanford, USC, Arizona St and Colorado every two years.

The permanent crossover games would be:

Washington & Oregon vs Wash St & Oregon St
California & UCLA vs Stanford & USC
Arizona & Utah vs Arizona St & Colorado

All rivalries would remain annual games. Each non-California team would play in LA and the Bay area 3 times in 4 years. The cycle would be complete every 4 years.