Duck fans shouldn’t gloat over Big 10 departure

Blowing up the Conference of Champions and marooning Oregon State deserve more shame than applause

The University of Oregon’s move to the Big 10 Conference is being driven by football, but it will result in difficult travel schedules for sports such as basketball that play more than one game a week.

I’m a die-hard Oregon Duck fan. After the sudden decision by the universities of Oregon and Washington to jump from the Conference of Champions to the Big 10, I’m still a die-hard Duck fan, just not a happy camper.

I get why Oregon jumped – the money, sketchy conference mismanagement, a puny Pac-12 media deal, the defection of Colorado to the Big 12 and the money. That doesn’t excuse how the jump went down or its impact on other universities. We didn’t like it when USC and UCLA left in a poof, weakening the conference. We shouldn’t be proud that Oregon finished the job.

At the risk of sounding sentimental, the Pac-12 has provided me with a lot of joyful moments. While attending college in Seattle, I saw Kareem Abdul Jabbar (then Lew Alcindor) play in person in the heyday of UCLA basketball. It was uplifting to see Beaverton native Darwin Barney help the Oregon State University Beavers win back-to-back College World Series. I was transfixed by the basketball magic of Sabrina Ionescu at Matt Court.

Oregon moving to the Big 10 won’t stop big moments, and it might generate some that weren’t previously possible. Yet, pulling a cornerstone out of a storied athletic conference, of which Oregon was a founding member in 1915, is saddening. Oregon’s departure triggered more defections, stranding conference partners on a four-team island. One of the marooned universities is Oregon’s longest-surviving sports rival.

The Oregon-Oregon State rivalry will probably continue like a cross-country marriage. The games will matter but probably not in the same way as before. If possible, the rivalry may become even more bitter with OSU fans understandably showing no pity when the Beavers beat the Ducks in any sport.

Bemoaning the influence of big money from media contracts is pointless. It’s a fact of modern sports. For perspective, owing your soul to television is better than selling out to gambling (though players at one Big 10 school apparently have explored that option).

The switch to the Big 10 should help Oregon recruit top-flight football players from all over the country. As head football coach Dan Lanning said, Oregon is already a national brand. Being part of a big-time conference stretching from coast to coast should make it easier to pluck burly recruits from prospect-rich places like Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan.

It remains to be seen whether the Ducks imitate smash-mouth football that has made the Big 10 famous or whether its faster, more wide-open game will force the Buckeyes and Wolverines out of the tranches of their mammoth stadiums.

With USC and UCLA already in the Big 10 fold, Oregon’s football schedule might not look as foreign as it might have been hooking up with a new conference. The addition of Oregon and Washington enlarges the Big 10 to 18 teams. How scheduling will work remains to be decided. With 16 teams, the Big 10 ditched its divisions to allow more intra-conference competition while guaranteeing continuation of historic rivalries. With 18 teams, divisions may be back on the table, if for no other reason than the cost of travel, especially for sports other than football. Flights to the Midwest and East Coast are twice as long as flying to Western destinations, which imposes more burdens on student athletes as well as their families and fans.

History of Big 10 Competition
Oregon has a history of playing Big 10 schools. The Ducks and Buckeyes met in the national championship game in 2015 and, more recently, the Ducks rolled into Columbus and bowled over the Buckeyes. Ohio State was supposed to play in Eugene as the second game of a home-and-home series but the game was canceled during the pandemic.

The Ducks have played Wisconsin and Michigan State multiple times since 2010, including in bowl games. Oregon hasn’t played Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Northwestern or Penn State for more than two decades and never has played Maryland or Rutgers in football.

Joining a new conference means all Duck teams will have a fresh set of opponents, many located far away. For winter sports, that will mean traveling to places where it snows a lot. For all teams, it will mean more long-distance travel and higher costs. For family and fans, travel costs may prevent them from attending games and events.

This is where more money comes into play. That should cover travel and other costs for team members but not for families and fans. It’s one thing to buy a ticket to the Bay Area or Los Angeles and another to get on a plane to Madison or State College. Penn State’s Beaver Stadium is 156 miles away from Philadelphia, requiring a two-hour train trip from the City of Brotherly Love.

Despite widespread lamentations, including mine, the world will keep spinning and crowds will keep packing football stadiums. Autzen Stadium may need expansion. It will be weird to root against Gophers, Terrapins, Spartans and Scarlet Knights. But it also was weird playing against the Tree on the Farm and Butch T. Cougar in the Palouse. Unfortunately, we will still be stuck listening to the perpetual USC fight song.

One subtlety of the switch: Big 10 football teams typically play in the afternoon, not at night. For West Coasters, that could mean having just enough time to get up, shower and eat breakfast before the first whistle blows on Duck road games in Midwest or East Coast time zones. Irritating but not as much as staying up until midnight to see the final play of a zany Duck-Washington State game.

Bottom line: it’s going to sting when Bill Walton calls a basketball game and blurts out “the former Conference of Champions”.

Gary Conkling has been a newsman, congressional aide and public affairs professional for more than 50 years.