Steven Sipple: With deep ties in Pac-12, former Nebraska A.D. Bill Moos mulls end of conference and cites greed as main culprit
His answer was firm and fiery, the passion in Bill Moos’ voice evident in the immediate aftermath of a huge chunk of his existence, the Pac-12 conference, being blown to smithereens.
Yes, the Pac-12 is in ruins.
Is that good for college football?
Is the apparent movement toward super conferences good for the college game?
“No, it isn’t,” said Moos, who was Nebraska’s athletic director from 2017 to 2021 and now enjoys life on his 160-acre ranch in eastern Washington state.
“Where are the rivalries?” he asked.
“Where’s the sense of regional camaraderie?”
He’s right, you know. For instance, what becomes of the Apple Cup? Of the Civil War (Oregon-Oregon State is no longer nicknamed the Civil War, but you get the idea)?
On and on.
Bill Moos ties to Pac-12 run extremely deep
Moos has an acute understanding of this world. Before becoming Nebraska’s athletic director, he served in the same capacity for both Oregon (1995 to 2007) and Washington State (2010 to 2017).
“There was no Oregon-Washington rivalry until I made it one,” Moos said proudly. “Then we (Oregon) beat Washington 12 straight years. I can tell you there’s a rivalry now.”
Twenty years ago, when Autzen Stadium in Eugene, Oregon, expanded, the first event in the newly configured stadium was a reception in a club room for Moos’ oldest daughter, who married a Washington Husky. Mike Bellotti, the former Oregon football coach, delighted attendees with a sparkling rendition of Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl.” Bellotti is a hell of a good singer, Moos said.
“My daughter was a Husky, too, when I was in Oregon as A.D. and we were beating the hell out of them,” Moos recalled with a booming laugh. “That was the toughest check I wrote every three months, was her tuition check.”
Yes, his Pac-12 roots run deep. Extremely deep. The 72-year-old Moos witnessed firsthand the rise of the conference, and closely monitored last week’s fall from his ranch. Saturday, he hauled hay all day before taking time for a media interview. He’s in the process of writing a book about his life.
Much of it will be about his life in the Pac-12.
He witnessed the first game of the old Pac-8 (Washington State beat Stanford) as a 13-year-old farm kid. He watched the first Pac-10 game (Washington State over Arizona State) as a 27-year-old fan. He was in the room as a 60-year-old A.D. for Washington State when the conference expanded to 12 in 2010-11 with the inclusion of Colorado and Utah. What’s more, he participated in the conference with distinction as a student-athlete for Washington State.
All told, he served 32 years in the conference.
Plus, “Both of my sons were scholarship student-athletes for conference schools (Ben for Cal and Bo for Arizona State),” Moos noted. “In my time as a Pac-12 A.D., I served on every committee, led the effort to achieve equal revenue distribution and preserve the partnership with the iconic Rose Bowl.
“It was literally a lifetime of passion and hard work for something that unfortunately is no more.”
Moos full of life on his ranch as he mulls end of league
It’s a fascinating juxtaposition. Moos is full of life on his ranch as he ponders the end of a conference — only four teams remain — that literally meant the world to him.
Moos notes that a little more than a decade ago, the Pac-12 was riding high. Larry Scott, the former commissioner, was hailed as a visionary after landing a 12-year, $2.7 billion media deal following the additions of Colorado and Utah. The deal more than tripled the conference’s rights fees.
It wasn’t long before Moos and the late Mike Leach were riding high for Washington State.
There was a problem, though. According to The New York Times, Scott’s insistence on launching the Pac-12 Network without ESPN or Fox as a partner turned into a colossal failure because the conference had no leverage with cable distributors. Thus, many of them refused to meet the Pac-12’s asking price, which left the network with far fewer viewers, and far less revenue, than other conference networks.
In a sense, the Pac-12 never fully recovered.
And now — thanks in large part to awful leadership by current commissioner George Kliavkoff — it’s in ruins.
Moos, though, looks beyond Kliavkoff’s inability to land a sufficient media rights deal. He looks to a bigger-picture issue. The former Nebraska A.D. points to a malady that has taken down an assortment of entities over the course of time — pure greed.
“All of it is gone (for the Pac-12) in the pursuit of a financial windfall that will never be enough no matter how large it grows,” said Moos, his voice rising in anger.
He clearly doesn’t like what’s happening in college football.
Most would agree that sound leadership is lacking.
It seems TV executives — nameless and faceless beings to most fans — essentially are calling the shots.
Some would say TV money is destroying college football. How well can it possibly work when Mountain West teams’ media-rights deals are a fraction of those in the power conferences?
Greed is certainly changing a collegiate sport that many of us came to love in the 1970s and 1980s, when TV networks weren’t in almost complete control.
“These people don’t give two craps about the fans,” Moos said. “They don’t care about the student-athletes who have to fly all over the country. Wait until Oregon has to go play Rutgers in New Jersey in a volleyball match.
“It’s all about the almighty dollar, and greed in the end — well, my friend, it’s the ruin of everything.”
That big ranch is feeling awfully good right now
With the way things are going in college athletics — including NIL and transfer portal — Moos is happy to be on the ranch at this point of his life.
He remembers when winning a conference crown meant the world to people.
College football may be heading toward two or three super conferences. Will we even call them “conferences”?
“When the BCS came into being (in 1998), I thought, ‘Look out, boys, this ain’t smelling right,’” Moos said. “Then we get to the College Football Playoff (in 2014) and, honestly, that’s what it’s all about now. The Big Ten is fine with all this expansion. It’s about getting another couple schools in the 12-team playoff format.”
Moos strikes a wistful tone as he recalls a time when winning a conference championship felt bigger than it does nowadays.
In fact, Moos recalls a “knock-down, drag-out” discussion he had once upon a time with Lute Olson, the former Arizona men’s basketball coach. Olson expressed concern about playing too many conference games that negatively impacted the Wildcats’ RPI.
“I said, ‘Hey, Lute, are you just about done talking?’” Moos said. “I told him that at my place (Oregon at the time), our number one goal is to win the Pac-10 championship. Every sport, that’s our goal. If we go into the (NCAA) postseason, that’s frosting on the cake.
“I told him that if you win the Pac-10 championship in basketball, you’re going to get a good national seed.”
Moos paused and thought back to the state of college football.
“Now, it’s like the NFL,” he said. “People will say, ‘It’s OK if we’re a wild card; we’ve just got to get our foot in the door (of the CFP) at the end of the year.”
At any rate, Moos doesn’t have to worry about it any longer. Also, let’s be clear: College sports will retain a level of excitement that’ll keep the masses coming back, even without the 108-year-old Pac-12.
“I’m sick about the Pac-12 news, but at least I got to have so many wonderful experiences,” Moos said.
He’ll hold tight to those memories as the collegiate sports landscape continues to shift.
He’s far away from it all, working on the big family ranch — where life is comparatively simple and pure.
The post Steven Sipple: With deep ties in Pac-12, former Nebraska A.D. Bill Moos mulls end of conference and cites greed as main culprit appeared first on On3.
