I’ve been snobby about the academics for years. I mean I was taught biochemistry by a Nobel Prize winner (though he hadn’t won it when I was being taught by him). A Utah researcher, can’t remember his name but he invented the artificial heart, spoke at my graduate school convocation when I was at Syracuse University. More snobby.
And remember, we’re light years ahead of that snobby school down south.
Dr Robert Jarvik
Cold Fusion (Utah Center of Excellence) - Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann 
Those 2. So embarrassing, one of these years they’ll fade into obscurity for us Utah grads.
No question. The PAC-10 chose like schools in CU and Utah to expand, our academic profile helped seal the invitation.
Since then, the world changed, a bit.
The expanded playoff slows down the rush to super-conferences, and I really hope David Shaw is proven correct & the LA schools come back, weary from all the travel.
Seems to me like the NIL race changes the equation a little, too. Phil Knight & the high rollers at UW will make sure those schools are competitive in getting players, and as Costanza pointed out, PAC schools can redirect TV money from other sports to remain competitive in the sport that really matters - football.
If Oregon & UW stay in the PAC, the LA schools will come back, IMO. There are too many knowledgeable voices saying the travel is crazy for the LA schools and the B1G to not have a plan for a B1G western wing to reduce the travel.
If the 2 big NW programs leave, the PAC may fall apart, or become some hybrid of PAC and MWC schools. My least favorite option would be joining the B12.
Options:
Stay put at 10, allow some other conference like the B12 to take SDSU - essentially surrender a foothold in SoCal.
Invite SDSU, otherwise hold. See if UNLV becomes something, explore SMU, try to flip Houston. SDSU gets in solely on TV market and location, otherwise they’re kind of like ASU in academics, not in the historic PAC mold. (Hawai’i fits the academics, so does UNLV. Just not enough interested eyeballs, and loco travel for Hawai’i.)
Invite SDSU and SMU or Houston or UNLV - after SDSU the pickings get really slim (unless we can flip Houston, which becomes a no-brainer decision).
I think it would be a sign of weakness and maybe even a perception of inevitable dissolution to not add anyone. It’s more possible with a 12 team playoff than it looked in the summer, definitely, but no action looks like paralysis. Unless they can flip Houston, I say go with the 2nd scenario and just add SDSU.
SDSU has risen dramatically in academics. Like the previous poster indicated, many here would not get into SDSU now. That will raise even more when they get R1 next year. It’s a very good fit.
But SDSU is not a research university of note. It’s more like Washington St and Arizona St.
I couldn’t remember his name, so thanks. He was a Syracuse University grad but did all of his great work with Utah.
Not many people know Jarvik’s wife’s claim to fame. Marilyn vos Savant has the highest recorded IQ ever. Many might remember her “Ask Marilyn” mental acuity questions in her weekly newspaper column.
That was her? I do recall that column. I enjoyed reading it.
Are you serious? I didn’t know that.
Their children must have been brialliant.
They were neighbors of mine when I was a kid in Olympus Cove on the East bench of Millcreek but they sold the house about 30 years ago. They were polite neighbors to everyone.