Big Ten Football: Who's to Blame for Collapse of Schedule Talks with Pac-12?

Fridays are for bad news, and thus it's no surprise that today's the day that the Big Ten and Pac-12 announced in a news release that the vaunted scheduling partnership of 2017 and beyond will, in fact, not be taking place.

Now, that's an odd development, especially after just seven months and with five years to go before the partnership even begins, but it's not exactly difficult to read between the lines of Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany's statement:

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We are disappointed to announce today that the Big Ten Pac-12 strategic collaboration announced jointly in December 2011 unfortunately will not be consummated. We recently learned from Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott that the complications associated with coordinating a non-conference 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 non-conference commitments.

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A great effort was made by both conference staffs to create football schedules that would address the variety of complexities, but in the end, we were just not able to do so.

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While everyone at the Big Ten is disappointed by the news, we look forward to continuing the historic partnership that we have with the Pac-12 and to working together on other matters in the future.

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Translation: this is all the Pac-12's fault. Blame Larry Scott.

Now, look. The only way coordinating something like this is too difficult for the Pac-12 and not the Big Ten is if there are Pac-12 institutions who weren't on board with the partnership.

Maybe that means some schools were upset at who they were partnered with—either because it isn't a "draw" for fans (Purdue) or because it'd make the schedule too difficult with nine Pac-12 teams already on the slate (Ohio State). Maybe it means the Pac-12 teams just didn't want to add more guaranteed road games.

But in terms of pure logistics, this is cake.

We're sure the Big Ten and Pac-12 will figure out something, because the two conferences' interests are so intertwined that it'd be crazy not to partner up. If that means something other than yearly games, so be it, but it's sort of hard to figure out what else it would mean. Perhaps increased bowl bid matchups?

The Big Ten's current deals are expiring soon, after all. It would certainly be more compelling than the annual trips to Florida to take on the SEC.