Utah athletics officially announced its departure from the Pac-12 for the Big 12 prior to the 2023/24 academic year. Even though move will become official in August.
In the meantime, the Utes may have jumped the gun with its football field.
Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark announced in July that a new conference logo was in the works. It will debut in 2024 to help usher in a new era. The name is going to stick even though there are more than 12 teams.
We don’t know what the new logo will look like. Nor do we know when it will be released. However, one would assume that a new logo would be introduced prior to the new additions. Certainly before the upcoming college football season.
This is where Utah may have made a mistake.
Kyle Wittingham’s program played its spring game last weekend and won’t need the field for awhile. When the Utes next return to the gridiron, they will be preparing for their first season in the Big 12.
To get out ahead of the transition, the grounds crew made a change.
The Pac-12 logo has been replaced with the Big 12 logo. An era of 13 years has come to an end and it definitely looks weird.
But here’s the thing…
Yormark said that a new logo was going to roll out sometime this year. Won’t the old logo be irrelevant by the time that the new logo goes live?
Utah may have replaced an antiquated Pac-12 logo with a soon-to-be antiquated Big 12 logo. This turf replacement process may again be necessary in the next three months.
There is probably a good reason to make the change now and not later. Maybe the Utes forgot, sure. More than likely the switch coincides with how the field will look during upcoming recruiting visits.
If the change was not intentional, with an understanding that it is temporary, that’s pretty awkward!