On Friday, the Big Ten and Pac-12 announced that the two conferences have dissolved the scheduling agreement proposed back in December due to scheduling conflicts with several teams in the Pac-12. Beginning in 2017, the two conferences would have played 12 games per year with the central focus of the deal revolving around a round-robin football schedule.
However, schools from the Pac-12 began raising concerns over the potentially daunting nature of this kind of schedule and the conference brought them to the attention of the Big Ten in March. Now, the deal has been suspended.
Via ESPN:
"We are disappointed to announce today that the Big Ten/Pac-12 strategic collaboration announced jointly in December 2011 unfortunately will not be consummated," Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany said in a statement. "We recently learned from Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott that the complications associated with coordinating a nonconference football schedule for 24 teams across two conferences proved to be too difficult. Those complications, among other things, included the Pac-12's nine-game conference schedule and previous nonconference commitments.
With the collaboration ended, the Big Ten may opt to expand their conference schedule from eight games to nine.
Jim Delany in May: "If we hadn’t done the collaboration, we’d do 9(-game league season). If we do the collaboration, we’ll do 8"
— Kyle Meinke (@kmeinke) July 13, 2012
