Ohio State canceling Washington series says more about Pac-12 than Buckeyes

Ohio State canceling its home-and-home series with Washington is another nail in the coffin for the Pac-12 and West Coast football as a whole.

With the Ohio State Buckeyes canceling their home-and-home series with the Washington Huskies, it looks so incredibly bad for the Pac-12, putting the struggling conference in a terrible spot.

The loser in all this is the fans. Why would we not want to see two traditional powers from different geographical footprints go at it? The Huskies will need to scramble to find suitable replacements for their 2024 and 2025 non-conference games. They have every right to be furious about this. However, it is all about previous leadership letting down the entire Pac-12 Conference.

Let’s discuss why this home-and-home cancelation says infinitely more about the Pac-12 than the Buckeyes or Huskies combined.

Ohio State-Washington cancelation looks so incredibly bad for Pac-12 football

Let’s be real. Anytime you see a big football brand get out of playing another worthy adversary in the non-conference, something is up. Keep in mind that the Pac-12 will be losing UCLA and USC to the Big Ten in 2024. Although Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff is doing his homework about conference expansion, most notably with San Diego State and SMU, neither match USC’s stature.

In truth, one would think if the Big Ten decided to go big-game hunting out on the West Coast again, their top-two targets would have to be Oregon and Washington. These are major athletic brands and are the flagship universities at the respective states. Of course, would Oregon and Washington be comfortable of leaving little brother behind like Oklahoma did exiting the Big 12?

It was not that long ago when we saw Georgia and Oklahoma cancel their home-and-home series. This came about because the Sooners will be in the Dawgs’ league beginning in 2024. Texas is allowed to play its second of a home-and-home with Alabama since they played the first meeting in Austin last year. Could this cancelation indicate the Big Ten is going to poach more universities?

You can certainly jump to those conclusions if you wanted to. However, I think it really comes down to the fact that the Pac-12 cannot secure the media rights deal it wants. It is why the Big Ten and the SEC are pulling away from there rest of the Power Five. College Football Playoff expansion will help the ACC, Big 12, Pac-12 and AAC, but the TV networks still pay the big bucks.

What it is going to take for the Pac-12 to survive this latest wave of conference realignment is for Kliavkoff to align himself with a third-party negotiator, somebody who can, in theory, be able to buy the whole conference. CBS, Disney, FOX and NBC may not be willing to pay billions for Pac-12 media rights, but an eccentric billionaire can. Just think about seizing the West Coast market share.

Overall, elite programs like Oregon and Washington are going to be fine, regardless of whatever league they play in. The problem is what happens to the Oregon States and Washington States of the world. They have passionate fanbases, but not necessarily the resources to compete at the highest levels consistently in this era of college football. Will big brother be able to protect them?

Ultimately, Washington is one of the few theoretical assets out there that can get a casual college football fan to a television set. As long as Kalen DeBoer continues to build of what he did in year one in Seattle, U-Dub should be rolling for the rest of the decade. Ohio State will be fine with or without Ryan Day long-term, but a Pac-12 without Washington is probably not going to survive.

A home-and-home cancelation like this probably hints that another realignment wave is coming.

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