Week 5: September 30, 2023

The season is clicking along and the team byes are starting to hit, with UCLA and WSU off. 

Oregon State went full-pumpkin mono-orange with its friday home game vs. Utah who went black/white/black, so the whole matchup felt very Beaver-centric. Stanford also went unusual mono black, which negated a Christmasy-looking game vs Oregon. Arizona went mono red, and Colorado went mono gray. Silver is one of their school colors, so Colorado is the only team in the Pac-12 who can go gray without being "gray for gray sake" and their gray is a warm goldy gray.

Week 4: September 23, 2023

WSU went all dark gray and white—a curious choice against a team that wears a lot of black, so the "Pac-2 Bowl" was a mostly a grayscale affair with alternating tones. Utah went with their annual throwbacks, while ASU went Maroon Monsoon with the color shifting maroon helmet..

Week 3: September 16, 2023

 

Week 2: September 9, 2023

After the Pac-12 went 13-0 in weeks 0 and 1, they had a great slate of games against some juicy non-conference foes. Utah, Oregon, Arizona, UCLA and Stanford all were on the road. 

Colorado's look was slightly tweaked this week with a black and white look that downplayed gold. Arizona State went "blackout" with the sweatpant-textured charcoal gray paired with burgundy helmet. Oregon brought back chrome for the first time in several years. Arizona went mono blue on the road against a mono white Miss. State.

Week 1: August 31–Sept 3, 2023

Week 0 and 1 kicked off the last season of the Pac-12, right as news that Oregon State and Washington State are the only teams left in the conference next season after Cal and Stanford are moving to the ACC! But the interesting news is that none of the 12 teams made major changes to their sets. Yes a few subtle tweaks, but no new fonts or colors or major edits to shapes.

USC was the only team to play in week 0, but they wore the same home uniform in week 1.  

Utah went full red-out against Florida, while ASU went with  mostly traditional gold/maroon/gold look with the subtle flag design moved to the flanks. Oregon debuted a new black and carbon fiber helmet on top of their mono yellow look. Stanford wore red on the road, while WSU was the exact opposite on the road.

Arizona made some very subtle changes after changing to Nike: the sleeve caps added a second red stripe and the A logo returned to the jersey. Washington also made subtle changes: the numbers lost theor gold stroke and the Addidas logo got simplified.

But the "darling" of the Pac-12 this week is Colorado. Buffs, led by the never-publicity-adverse "Prime" not only pulled off a road upset of TCU, when all the pundits said they would finish 11th in the Pac-12, they did it with some aded glitz! For the first time I can remember, the jersey number are shiny gold instead of black and the Colorado chest wordmark got enlarged and shined up. Looks great on the wall white uniforms!

Schedule grid

USC has started play already with their "week 0" victory over San Jose State, but the rest of the Pac gets going this coming weekend. Here is a nice concise grid for the season from the Pac12.

The End of the Pac- (fill in the blank #)

Many people are saying that Aug. 4, 2023 is the day that the Pac-12 died. 

I guess if you are being pendantic, you would say June 30, 2022 was the day the "12" died when USC and UCLA announced leaving for the Big-10. But then Colorado decamped for the Big 12 in July of 2023, and today Oregon and Washington made it official about their move to the Big-10 (18 teams). 

So "today" it's the "Pac-7" but by tomorrow it may only be Cal, Stanford, OSU and WSU after the Four Corner schools go to Big-12? 

(Edit: Yes, the rest of the Mountain schools left for the Big 12  later on August 4, 2023 and on September 1, Cal and Stanford left for the ACC, leaving only OSU and WSU)

So what does that mean to this website? and the teams that it tracks in 2024? A lot will happen in the next 12 months but it probably means that the Pac will not really exist in Sept 2024? Does that mean that I will be tracking Mountain West Teams? Or helping track Big-10 teams? Not sure!

My personal opinion—as a Oregon alum, and 30-year Duck and Pac fan— is that the Pac-12 was a great conference and College Football is better off with the more-geographical conferences that put tradition and history and culture first. I get that money matters, and Oregon has been lucky to have plenty of money and success lately, but the losers are the Beavers, Cougars and to some extent the Bears and Cardinal. 

Looking forward to playing some of the Big-10 teams but hoping to keep the Civil War Game and some other west coast games. Maybe at least now our 3-4 "out of conference" games will be against Cal, OSU and WSU rather than PSU and Hawaii?