Word has leaked out that the Pac 10 finally has a deal in principle on conference realignment, scheduling, and revenue sharing that will be rubber stamped by the conference Presidents when they meet on Thursday.
The conference reportedly will go with the North/South split that Commissioner Larry Scott originally proposed:
North - Washington, WSU, Oregon, Oregon State, California, Stanford
South - USC, UCLA, Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, Utah
There will be equal revenue sharing in the future but UCLA and USC will receive an extra $2 million per year in media revenue until the next round of TV contracts are negotiated. Once a certain revenue threshold is met everything will be shared equally going forward starting in 2012-2013.
What could still be negotiable is whether the California members play each other annually in football and how often the Northwest schools will play those in L.A.
The California schools want to play each other every year so some type of pod scheduling arrangement may be on the table to make that happen. Washington could possibly be a winner in that scenario if they break the league into four scheduling pods.
Pod scheduling would require NCAA approval because there wouldn't be round robin division play in that type of scenario every season. If they move in that direction it could be awhile until they receive an exception from the NCAA.
Four Pod
Pod 1 - USC, UCLA, Colorado
Pod 2 - Arizona, Arizona State, Utah
Pod 3 - Stanford, California, Washington
Pod 4 - Oregon, Oregon State, Washington State
Three Pod
Pod 1 - Washington, WSU, Oregon, Oregon State
Pod 2 - California, Stanford, UCLA, USC
Pod 3 - Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, Utah
Injured Huskies Return to Practice
A couple of interesting notes from the Sark radio show last night.
First is the news that RB Johri Fogerson, WR Devin Aguilar, and OL Erik Kohler all participated in practice last night. Sark didn't say that they were going to play on Saturday but it is a big step in that direction. Contact resumes today so if these three are still on the field it will be a very good sign.
DE Talia Chrichton will be out an extended period of time and Fr Hauoli Jamora will step in and take his place. As of last night the team was still awaiting results of the MRI. There is some fear that there could be some ligament damage. If that is the case Talia would require surgery and be lost for the season.