The offseason is definitely not the slow season as yet another week delivered news impacting both the Pac-12 legacy schools and other universities across the region.
Here are five developments you might have missed.
1. Early-season kickoffs announced
Nitty gritty: The major conferences released kickoff times for all games across the opening three weeks and the special-date games (i.e., Friday matchups) throughout the season.
Why it matters: Yes, fans need to know start times to begin making travel arrangements and schools want to start planning campus festivities around football. But our focus is a specific matter that reveals so much about the state of the sport.
The Hotline went week by week, conference by conference, to determine the number of games scheduled for broadcast television — the games that will receive the widest exposure and carry the greatest value to the media companies and their advertisers.
We did not include Week 0 matchups (Aug. 23).
Also, the data listed below credits conferences for a broadcast network appearance even if its participant in one of the matchups is the visiting team. (Because aggressive scheduling is valued.)
We included the number of games shown only on streaming platforms to reflect the amount of inventory with the lowest media value.
Big Ten: 10 games on over-the-air networks with two more possible, and two games that will be streamed.
SEC: 10 games on over-the-air networks with two more possible, and 10 games that will be streamed.
ACC: Seven games on over-the-air networks with two more possible, and eight that will be streamed.
Big 12: Six games on over-the-air networks, with 16 games that will be streamed.
The breakdown reflects the disparity in media value, TV ratings and brand power at the heart of the sport’s bifurcation.
The Big Ten and SEC are leaving everyone else behind, with the placement of early-season games over various networks offering additional evidence.
2. Competing models emerge for 16-team College Football Playoff
Nitty gritty: The SEC’s spring meetings made public what had been discussed behind the scenes: The powers-that-be are focused on two wildly different formats for the CFP when it expands in the 2026 season.
The 5+11 model reserves five automatic bids for conference champions and allocates the rest to at-large teams.
The 4-4-2-2-1 model assigns 13 automatic bids, with the Big Ten and SEC getting four, the Big 12 and ACC receiving two and the Group of Five having one. Additionally, there are three at-large spots that include a special pathway created for Notre Dame.
Why it matters: CFP access is the only thing that matters in college sports these days — well, that and the House antitrust lawsuit settlement — and negotiations over the two competing models are intense.
Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti is pushing for the 4-4-2-2-1 version, which is heavy on automatic bids, while the ACC and Big 12 want the 5+11 format loaded with at-large slots.
Notably, the SEC has positioned itself as the swing vote. The league’s coaches favor 5+11, according to a Yahoo report, but commissioner Greg Sankey is uncommitted. (At least publicly.)
According to governance terms established last spring, the SEC and Big Ten have the authority to determine the CFP format for 2026 and beyond but are required to take input from the other conferences.
According to Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark, the format must be finalized by December. However, the CFP structure is deeply connected to another matter of supreme importance to the sport: whether the SEC plays eight or nine conference games in future seasons.
If the SEC stays at eight, its members would have more overall wins than Big Ten teams, which play nine conference games. Any CFP format heavy on at-large bids would naturally give the SEC an advantage.
The SEC must set its schedule format by the end of the summer — several months before resolution to the CFP issue is required.
3. Big 12 announces campus distributions for the 2024-25 fiscal year
Nitty gritty: On Friday, at the close of the Big 12 spring meetings, Yormark revealed the conference would distribute $558 million to the schools for the 2025 fiscal year, the first of the 16-school structure.
What it means: Not as much as it will next spring, when the other power conferences disclose their campus distributions and context emerges.
But the figure is interesting nonetheless.
Split evenly across 16 campuses, the total distribution equates to an average of $34.9 million.
However, there are layers:
— The four schools that joined in 2023 (Brigham Young, Cincinnati, Houston and UCF) receive partial shares of the conference’s media rights revenue.
— The four schools that joined in 2024 (Arizona, ASU, Colorado and Utah) receive full shares of the media revenue.
— And the eight continuing members are believed to receive full shares plus a bonus taken from the amount withheld from the 2023 arrivals.
All 16 schools share equally in the NCAA Tournament and bowl/CFP revenue.
Pinpointing exact distribution amounts for each campus is difficult because we don’t know the specifics of the media rights contract with Fox and ESPN — and we won’t until the FY2025 tax filings are released next spring.
And even then, the figures will be one-offs because FY2026 marks the start of a new media contract cycle for the conference, with payouts escalating over time.
4. College Football Hall of Fame selection criteria changed
Nitty gritty: The National Football Foundation, which oversees the College Football Hall of Fame, announced on Thursday that it had “revised the minimum career winning percentage required for coaching eligibility from .600 to .595.”
Why it matters: The small change means so much to the legacy of one former coach in particular. Mike Leach, who was the architect of turnarounds at Texas Tech, Washington State and Mississippi State but passed away in December 2022, is the prime beneficiary.
Leach’s winning percentage is .596, but the Hall of Fame did not round up. Had the prior standard (.600) remained in place, the man who popularized the offense system that changed the sport would never have been elected.
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With the bar lowered a whopping .005, Leach will take his rightful place among the game’s elites with his (presumed) election in 2027.
Nice work by the NFF making the change proactively, instead of in response to the uproar that surely would have come in two years.
5. New Pac-12 schools give departure notice to the Mountain West
Nitty gritty: Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, San Diego State and Utah State on Saturday informed the Mountain West of their planned exit on July 1, 2026.
Why it matters: While a formality in many regards, the official notice, as reported by the San Diego Union-Tribune, is worth noting for the public record.
The quintet moved on May 31 in order to beat the June 1 deadline that would have marked a doubling of the exit fees, from $18 million to $36 million, based on Mountain West policy.
For all the scuttlebutt on social media that the schools might be pondering a merger between the new Pac-12 and the new Mountain West, the development helps underscore a point overlooked by many fans: The five schools are leaving, in large part, to disassociate themselves competitively from the bottom of the conference.
Strength-of-schedule matters immensely in the era of the expanded CFP, which features an automatic bid for the best team outside the Power Four conferences.
In most years, the champion of the rebuilt Pac-12 should have an excellent chance to reach the playoff. That would not necessarily be the case if the bottom half of the Mountain West were part of the conference.
The same strategy holds for NCAA Tournament at-large bids.
It’s not just about more media revenue. It’s about creating a higher standard of competition to widen the path into the CFP and March Madness.
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