The College Football Playoff semifinals will feature the most anticipated rematch of the entire year on Friday as the No. 5 Oregon Ducks will square off with the No. 1 Indiana Hoosiers in the Peach Bowl.
The two teams previously met in a tight top-10 clash back on October 11, one that saw the Hoosiers go into Eugene and leave with a 30-20 victory. This proved to be the most consequential result in the Big Ten this year as it helped propel IU to a matchup with fellow unbeaten Ohio State in the conference championship game while also costing Oregon a shot at successfully defending its Big Ten title.
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Wait … I thought Oregon was in the Pac-12?
Some of you may not be in tune with all of the conference realignment moves that have taken place in college athletics over the past few years and may be wondering “wait, why Oregon is in the Big Ten? That seems weird.” And you are correct, it is weird! The Ducks now call what has historically been a Midwestern league home because the old Pac-12 fell apart.
How Oregon’s move to the Big Ten happened
To summarize how this came to be, this decade’s round of realignment kicked off with Oklahoma and Texas jumping in tandem to the SEC, a massive move that strengthened the already powerful southern-based league. The massive boost in revenue and prestige for the SEC put pressure on other power conferences to keep up, especially a Pac-12 that had dragged its feet on securing an adequate media rights deal through two commissioners. Trying to ensure their own futures, USC and UCLA sent shockwaves through the college sports landscape in the summer of 2022 with the announcement of them joining the Big 10, destabilizing the West Coast league they were leaving behind.
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Without the Los Angeles schools, Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff continued to struggle to secure the conference a new media rights deal and those efforts were further complicated when the Big 12 was able to extend its agreement with FOX and ESPN in June of 2023. He was finally able to present a deal with Apple to league members that August, an underwhelming offer that prompted several schools to start looking for the exits. What resulted was the floodgates being opened as Oregon and Washington left for the Big Ten, the quartet of Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, and Utah departed for the Big 12, and the California Bay Area duo of Cal and Stanford ended up in the ACC. Oregon State and Washington State were left behind in the wreckage and has since assembled a new Pac-12 that is set to go live next season.
So yeah, that’s why Oregon is in the Big Ten and playing October games against the likes of Indiana and Wisconsin instead of Arizona and Cal. It’s a true shame that the premier West Coast conference as we knew it no longer exists, but that’s just the nature of college athletics these days.
