Oregon State did not just eliminate the uncertainty about its future, it did it during the week of the year that the most eyes would be on Beavers football.
Starting in 2026 it will include Boise State, San Diego State, Fresno State and Colorado State, as Yahoo Sports first reported on Wednesday night.
Who else? That's to be determined.
It's not lost on me that in the last round of realignment, the Pac-12 was the victim of an overnight raid. This time, it was the one doing the pillaging.
But that's college sports in 2024. Eat or get eaten. Play or get played.
The conference took advantage of the platform of its two remaining schools' rivalry week to drop its own bomb on the college football establishment. Now, when the Beavers host rival Oregon on Saturday, it will be Oregon State going on the realignment offensive that dominates the national broadcast on Fox.
Not a bad way to introduce the new Pac-12 to the country.
OSU did the right thing for its future on Wednesday.
No, it won't be the Pac-12 that we knew and loved. That one was already gone. It's not a lock for an automatic qualifier to the 12-team playoff. But the Beavers and Washington State read the room and decided it was better to chart their own destiny than hope for a lifeline from the Big 12 (wasn't coming) or that the potential collapse of the ACC would open up a lane (perhaps even less likely).
The uncertainty was unsustainable.
Oregon State has gotten hammered over the past year. Its main revenue streams disappeared, so did its rival, and along the way, too many key athletes to count. Amid that, the school lost a piece of its identity.
What is Oregon State without Oregon and without the Pac-12?
That's a question that OSU will continue to try to answer, but the Beavers finally have a clear path.
They are not settling for the Mountain West. Far from it. They get the best of the Mountain West without the San Jose State or New Mexico of it all.
Mountain West Commissioner Gloria Nevarez overplayed her hand. Initially providing safe harbor for the surviving Pac-12 schools, the cost of a scheduling alliance was steep and the deadline to renew for 2025 passed without much heartburn on the part of the Pac-12.
If Oregon State and Washington State were going to write the Mountain West an absurdly large check with the booty from the Pac-12 settlement, they might as well get to leave with some merchandise. The Pac-12 is on the hook for more than $10 million for each Mountain West school it invites. That's worth it if it leads to a clear path to the CFP.
The College Football Playoff was designed to accommodate five automatic qualifying conferences. If the goal is to be positioned as the fifth best football conference in the country, then this put the Pac-12 on the right track.
Boise State's football credentials are well known at this point. They didn't need a strong showing at Oregon last week to back that up, but they gave one anyway. San Diego State and Fresno State have combined for 10 10-win seasons since 2013.
To meet FBS qualification requirements, the Pac-12 will need to reach at least eight teams by 2026. So why stop at six for now?
For when the Big Ten buyer's remorse hits Oregon and Washington, of course.
Kidding, kidding.
But you don't have to hand out all your tickets right away. It makes sense to root for the demise of the ACC so that Stanford and Cal have to at least think about a homecoming. It's a longshot.
The more likely answer is that by destabilizing the second tier of college football, the Pac-12 has set off a domino effect that will reverberate throughout conferences such as the American and the Sun Belt, not to mention the FCS.
The new Pac-12 secured the most important football brands in the Mountain West and can now be selective about who else to pursue.
Is it a program in a burgeoning market, such as UNLV? Makes sense, but barring the full-scale collapse of the Mountain West would be costly without much competitive bang for the buck.
Do they then go after another school with a strong brand and fanbase like Air Force or Wyoming? Is it Memphis, Tulane or UTSA?
If football prowess is valued over market or recruiting footprint, as the first round of the shopping spree indicates, then the calculus changes slightly.
One thing to keep in mind is that the Pac-12 does not need to explode into a 12- or 16-team behemoth like the existing Power Four. That would only mean more slices of a pie that will almost certainly be smaller than what OSU and WSU enjoyed before being left for dead.
Yes, I appreciate the timing of this move. Make the most of your moment when you're on that stage.
But more important is the stability it provides, ensuring meaningful matchups and opportunities for Oregon State and Washington State to play in the spotlight long after Saturday's rivalry games are over.