Oregon State: Matt Leinart on return of Pac-12: 'It's not going to look the same'.
Oregon State · Washington State · ArizonaThe other 10 teams joined the Big 12 ( Arizona, Arizona State , Colorado , Utah ), the Big Ten ( Oregon , USC, UCLA , Washington ) , and the ACC ( Stanford , California ). “I understood the move from USC and UCLA and those schools to the Big 10” Leinart said.
“I understood the financial reasons why. And you had to adapt to this new age of college football.
It’s still, to this day, we cover the Big 10 and saying USC is part of the Big 10, it will never really feel normal to me.” Because of these changes, the Pac-12 is not a power conference.
Before the start of the 2026 college football season, Leinart spoke to On3 about the Pac-12 featuring eight teams instead of just two teams during the previous two seasons. It’s not going to look the same, that’s for sure,” Matt Leinart told On3 in August.
KEY POINTS
- During the 2024 and 2025 seasons, the Pac-12 was only Oregon State and Washington State .
- For the 2026 season (and beyond), Colorado State , Boise State, Fresno State, San Diego State, Texas State , and Utah State joined the Pac-12 for an eight-team conference.
- Matt Leinart loves that the Pac-12 is back, but he also knows it will look different than when he played in the conference.
- The Big Ten, ACC, Big 12, and SEC are the Power 4 conferences, while the Pac-12 is part of the Group of 6 conferences, meaning it will be more challenging for a team from those conferences to win a national title.