Humor me with an impractical pipe dream.

Wouldn't it be easier to just wait for the Bruins to get tired of sucking wind in the B1g, and come limping back to the PacX?

Regarding San Bernardino, the thought was FCS for a few years (probably Big Sky) and then WAC. I think in 2009 the WAC still played football. No one was thinking of competing directly against USC and UCLA.

I think California could easily produce a couple more Pac 12 quality teams. They have so many schools that serve a lot of students. The only question is whether they want to grow in that direction.

I was just messing with ya

Did you miss the last sentence of my post?

I would suggest that they closed down their programs because they weren't playing with the big boys. Football is a different animal at non-power 5 schools. If you're a power 5 school, you get better athletes and you play against better opponents, and that's what fans want to see. Coincidentally, this is could be what is fueling the conference realignments. 

So take a school like Sac State. Nobody cares about the hornets because they have always played lesser quality teams and in a lower quality conference. But if you raise them to a Power 5 conference, it could spark a lot of interest. And certainly the Sacramento area is thirsty for a quality team to root for. I think it could work.

Sure as hell beats just joining the MW. We have a chance to build something great, so we need vision. 

33 years.

The 1991 California Budget Crisis and the incredibly poorly-timed 1991-1992 NCAA division rule changes is the answer basically.  Add in Title IX.  And then there was a domino effect.

The more recent teams dropping football also were as a result of the Big Eight raiding the Southwest Conference and the domino effect.  (You can blame the SEC for earlier raiding the Southwest Conference, and the Southern Methodist Death Penalty, as well.)  This includes things like the defection of the eight Mountain West teams out of the WAC and everyone's resulting moves.

In 1991, the State of California was $14 billion in debt and cut $7 billion, a lot of that being passed on to the public universities. 

Long Beach State cut football and several women's sports. 

UCSB actually had a lot more money than Long Beach State, but they had to move the football team up to Division 1-AA or have all other sports drop down to Division 2.  They chose to try and move football up to Division 1-AA.  Unable to increase funding, because of the California Budget Crisis, they put the vote to the students to increase fees by $18 per student to raise $720,000 to keep the football team.  The students voted against the $18 annual increase and voted to end the football team by 555 votes.

Cal State Fullerton decided to try and move down to Division 1-AA and left the Big West after the 1991 season.  The only way that Cal State Fullerton could figure out how to transition down to Division 1-AA was to suspend football for a season and then bring it back in 1994 in Division 1-AA.  However, after a year without football, Cal State Fullerton did not have the money to bring back football.  Cal State Fullerton chose to cut football and several women's sports to keep the rest of the athletic department afloat.

Cal State Northridge was actually transitioning to Division 1 from Division 2 in 1990 and so got two years move football up to Division 1-AA.  They successfully did so in 1993 and into the American West Conference.  The other three teams in the American West Conference were Cal Poly, Sacramento State, and Southern Utah.  Cal State Fullerton was supposed to transition down to the American West Conference to make five teams, and UC Davis was supposed to transition up to the American West Conference to make six teams, which is the minimum for a 1-AA conference at the time.  However, because Cal State Fullerton cut football, UC Davis announced that it would not transition up to Division 1-AA at that time, instead remaining in Division 2 until 2002.  The four remaining teams tried to find a suitable replacement for Cal State Fullerton but never did. 

After a year with UC Davis transitioning and then backing out and then two years as a four-team conference, Cal State Northridge and Sacramento State joined the Big Sky.  (Cal State Northridge, Portland State, and Sacramento State were the three teams brought into the Big Sky to replace Boise State, Idaho, and Nevada, which left in the preceding four years.)  Cal Poly and Southern Utah went independent until 2003, when both universities joined the Great West. 

In 2000, Boise State accepted a bid to join the WAC, which killed the Big West in football.  Four of the other five teams joined the Sun Belt in football.  Utah State went independent for two years before also joining the Sun Belt.  The Big West, however, continued on as a non-football conference with Idaho and Utah State for a couple of years.  The Big West added Cal State Northridge and UC Riverside in all sports.  Cal State Northridge was kicked out of the Big Sky as a result.  Cal State Northridge tried one year of independent Division 1-AA football before dropping football altogether between 2001-2002 and cutting several women's sports.  The move was estimated to have saved Cal State Northridge more than a $1 million per year, which helped Cal State Northridge balance its athletic budget.

Santa Clara faced the same thing as UCSB.  Santa Clara had to move up to Division 1-AA in football or drop all other sports to Division 2.  Santa Clara elected to discontinue football and drop women's sports as a cost-cutting move.

Pacific faced a $400,000 shortfall in 1995 and suspended the football team for one year. Instead, they cut several women's sports and never brought them back. Because Pacific cut football and because of the WAC's raid of the Big West and Southwest Conference teams, Boise State and Idaho moved up to the Big Sky, which set up the chain of events, which caused Cal State Northridge to drop football.

St. Mary's is Santa Clara's rival.  St. Mary's was forced to move up to Division 1-AA in 1993.  St. Mary's survived for 11 seasons in Division 1-AA without Santa Clara as an independent.  St. Mary's was slated to become an original member of the Great West Conference with Cal Poly, Northern Colorado, North Dakota State, South Dakota State, Southern Utah, and UC Davis.  But they ran out of money six months before the first season and cut football and several women's sports.