Pac-2 mailbag: What are the scenarios for Washington State and Oregon State?

Nice read. Thanks! 

I hadn't thought about the Beavs and the Cougs playing as independents for a couple of years. Might not be a bad idea.

Frankly I like it better than joining either the MWC or AAC.  But scheduling would be a challenge.  We likely would end up playing a lot of road games.   Last time this happened, 1959, we went on the road to play Nebraska, Texas Tech, and Michigan.  Fortunately we still were able to schedule some legacy PCC teams, Cal, Stanford, UW, USC, Idaho, along with Oregon and WSU who were also independents.  

I think recruiting would suffer if the teams are not part of a formal conference.

I think it would be very very very hard for OSU and/or WSU to go independent right now. So hard, I probably should add a few more "verys" to the statement.

There are only 4 independent schools right now. Army, Notre Dame, UMASS and UCONN, that's it. From what I'm reading, UMASS has been struggling and wants to be in a conference and hasn't been able to find one. I don't know UCONN's story. Notre Dame supposedly thinking about joining a conference fully because of the upcoming playoff situation.

As an independent, OSU would have no bowl ties, so a major bowl would probably be out of the question unless they could somehow cobble a strong schedule together and pretty much win them all.

Scheduling would be another nightmare. Most any school worthwhile probably has their OOC games scheduled out 2/3/4+ years already, and we'd have to find 9 opponents FAST just to play a full season next year. I guess in theory we could schedule all 9 games at Reser against FCS teams and kiss the thought of a bowl game goodbye, not sure what people would think of that.

Also, at that point, OSU would have no media deal. OSU doesn't have the power of religion or the US services behind them, it's not in a major city or a killer media market, so I doubt there would be much TV money, and likely Apple probably won't be interested in doing a deal for 1 or 2 teams. There's strength in numbers with a conference behind you, even it's not one of the 4 strongest conferences.
If the Pac 2 merged with the MWC under the Pac banner it would likely be either the 5th or 6th strongest conference, with that would come at least some negotiating power as far as bowls go, might even get to keep the current bowl agreements for a while.

I'd think going independent successfully would require a lot of planning, perhaps years in advance, and probably would work better for a school with more "brand" appeal than OSU has.

I did not catch anything about OSU going independent in the article… He promoted the “have the MWC disband and form into Pac-X” idea, with the hope it could be done soon-ish. Or did I miss something…?

This question was asked:  "What are the specifics on this Pac-12 “war chest” I’ve heard about? Could it fund Oregon State and Washington State as football Independents for a year or two until the next round of conference collapse?"

Wilner did not answer what I thought was the point of the question:   If WSU/OSU are the last teams standing, whar is to stop them from taking  the residual money and then going independent?   

Exactly what I was thinking.  Trying to rebuild the conference with those two hanging around, objecting to every potential new team, is not worth it.   I've never understood insisting that academic excellence be mixed with athletics.   Its almost like those schools are saying:   "We aren't happy being involved in athletics anyway, but if we have to do it we're going to limit ourselves to membership with other high wire academic schools that feel the same way."