College football's latest round of conference realignment may leave the Pac-12 on its death bed

• College sports is going through another round of radical conference realignment.
• With USC and UCLA moving to the Big Ten, several other Pac-12 schools are reportedly now in talks with the Big 12.

College sports is going through another round of major conference musical chairs, and it is starting to look like nobody wants to sit in the Pac-12.

Last week, USC and UCLA put the rest of the Pac-12 on notice when they agreed to join the Big Ten starting in 2024. With the conference's two biggest names jumping ship, a new report says several other schools are looking for a new home.

According to The Athletic, six Pac-12 schools are in serious talks to join the Big 12. Those six schools are Oregon, Washington, Utah, Arizona, Arizona State, and Colorado.

Losing Oregon and Washington, especially, would be a death blow to the Pac-12 as a Power 5 conference.

If those schools do leave the Pac-12, that will leave just Stanford, Cal, Oregon State, and Washington State as full-time members.

The Pac-12 has a couple of options, but neither is great

The Pac-12 will find a way to keep going, but it will be a shell of its former self.

One possibility is to refill the Pac-12 with schools from Group of 5 conferences — the second tier of college football's top division. Geographically, teams from the Mountain West make the most sense, with schools like Hawaii, Wyoming, Air Force, San Diego State, Boise State, and Colorado State.

Another option put forth by The Athletic is for the Pac-12 to form a "partnership" with the ACC, home of football powerhouses like Clemson and Florida State. That would give the two conferences more marquee games, which would help keep the TV money flowing. If the Pac-12 loses the six schools to the Big 12, along with USC and UCLA, the conference will have lost major TV markets in LA, Phoenix, Seattle, Denver, and Salt Lake City.

The downside is, geographically, it makes little sense for non-revenue sports (e.g., pretty much every sport outside of football and men's and women's basketball).

Of course, the best option is for the Pac-12 to convince the six schools talking to the Big 12 to stay put. On Tuesday, the Pac-12 announced that they would be opening negotiations for their next media-rights deal, set to expire in 2024. Doing so could give the six schools reportedly looking around a better idea of what they can expect financially by staying in the Pac-12.

Big Ten and SEC could go to war over Notre Dame and North Carolina

As schools and conferences jockey for position and strength, the two biggest fish outside the Pac-12 are Notre Dame and North Carolina.

Notre Dame is already in the ACC outside of football, and its gridiron team has a partnership with the ACC for a handful of games each season. While the Fighting Irish have long resisted joining a football conference, their bargaining power now is likely higher than ever as they are still the biggest national TV prize in the sport. With the ACC starting to fall further behind the SEC and Big Ten, now might be the time for Notre Dame to rethink their deal with the ACC and align with one of the other power conferences.

Meanwhile, as The Athletic notes, North Carolina will likely also be pursued by the Big Ten and SEC.

"Don't underestimate the power of the Tar Heels in all of this," Matt Fortuna and Andy Staples wrote. "While things have been relatively quiet in ACC country since the UCLA and USC news last week, UNC remains the biggest prize not named Notre Dame. It is a national brand — what other school has a shade of blue named after it? — with a sterling academic reputation. And it is the flagship school of the nation's 10th-biggest state in terms of population — one that happens to be the biggest remaining state that is not currently in the Big Ten or SEC footprint."

The Power 5 is shrinking

College football is still made up of two classes: The Power 5 and Group of 5 conferences.

As things stand now, the hierarchy within the Power 5 conferences is becoming more pronounced, and the landscape will change. The Big Ten and SEC are still the kings of college football. The Big 12, which will be losing Oklahoma and Texas in 2025, is making a play to stay in the picture, and the ACC and Pac-12 are holding on for dear life.

Unless things change dramatically, momentum suggests that college football will eventually be three power conferences (Big Ten, SEC, Big 12). Do the Pac-12 and ACC try to stick out and hope a partnership helps them remain power players? Or would the remnants of those conferences look to join the Big 3 with the unclaimed schools forced to partner with the Group of 5 conferences, create a new division of college football, and even their own playoff?

If that were to happen, maybe the ACC and Pac-12 could save a little face by becoming the big schools of a Tier 1A, while also helping to elevate the remaining schools to something more than the second tier of college football.

Either way, it feels like we are closer to the beginning of this mess than we are to the end.