Sun Devils, Wildcats will play their last season in the Pac-12
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It's not yet clear what will become of the Pac-12 or its four remaining teams, but this football season will be the last before the conference as we've long known it disappears forever.
The big picture: ASU, UofA, Colorado and Utah will bolt for the Big 12 next year, while Oregon, UCLA, USC and Washington will join the Big Ten.
- It's been a 46-year run for the Sun Devils and Wildcats, who joined what had previously been the Pac-8 in 1978 to create the Pac-10.
- That leaves Cal, Oregon State, Stanford and Washington State as the last teams in the conference, which could either disband or bring in new members.
Between the lines: Neither ASU nor UofA is expected to make much of a splash in its final year in the Pac-12, with both teams projected to finish around eighth to 10th place.
Flashback: ASU won the conference outright in 1986 and 1996, and shared the Pac-10 crown with USC in 2007, though it was the Trojans, not the Sun Devils that went to that year's Rose Bowl.
- Had the 1996 Sun Devils won the Rose Bowl — they lost on a heartbreaking touchdown by Ohio State with 19 seconds left — they likely would've been that year's national champions.
- The Cats have never won the conference outright. They were Pac-10 co-champions with UCLA and USC in 1993, with the Rose Bowl berth going to the Bruins.
- UofA made it to the 2014 Pac-12 championship game, where Oregon trounced them.
1 unfortunate distinction: UofA will leave the conference having never gone to the Rose Bowl, the traditional reward for the winners of the Pac-12 and Big Ten.
- Prior to the admission of Colorado and Utah in 2010, the Cats were the only team in the conference to have never gone to the Rose Bowl. Utah played in the game in 2022 and 2023.
- With the advent of the College Football Playoff in 2014, the Rose Bowl became a playoff game every three years and in other seasons it took the two conferences' top teams that didn't make it to the playoff.