George Kliavkoff allowed the Pac-12 to crumble around him. He is not singlehandedly at fault for the conference’s demise, but he is primarily responsible.
To make matters worse, the Pac-12 collapsed in the same year that one of the teams reached its first-ever CFP after going undefeated. If that wasn’t embarrassing enough for the man in charge, Washington reached the college football national championship game.
A team that is set to depart the Pac-12 in less than six months finished as one of the final two teams left standing in the entire country. And Kliavkoff is to blame!
The Huskies are off to the Big Ten alongside Oregon, USC and UCLA. Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah are leaving for the Big 12. Cal-Berkeley and Stanford will join the ACC.
Only Washington State and Oregon State will remain in the Pac-2. George Kliavkoff, who is somehow still employed, will be tasked with rebuilding the conference from the ground-up in just two years.
That’s a later problem.
In the meantime, the commissioner was in attendance at NRG Stadium to support a school that is soon to leave him in the past. It was like that kid in the group project who didn’t complete his portion of the work and still hung on to mooch an ‘A’ grade.
Not only was Kliavkoff on the sideline for the national title game… he wore university-issued shoes!
It really doesn’t get much softer than that.
Kliavkoff will likely defend his attire and attendance as “supporting a Pac-12 school on the biggest stage” if asked. But was he really??
Both teams on the field on Monday night will play their next games as members of the Big Ten. The team he was there to support told him to kick rocks and took more money to play elsewhere. Brutal!