Ivan Maisel discusses political implications of UCLA leaving Pac-12

When USC and UCLA announced a surprise move from the Pac-12 to the Big Ten, many focused on the impact it would have on college football, but the quick departure could have political consequences. While USC is a private school with the right to move when and where they want, UCLA has abandoned California, which is the flagship member of the University of California school system.

On3’s Ivan Maisel joined the On Texas Football podcast this week to discuss the changing landscape of college athletics, including the political implications of a public school like UCLA leaving California behind.

“Between us, we could name 40 states where the governor, and/or the legislature would step in and go, ‘Wait just a minute, you’re not leaving without them,’” said Maisel. “That’s how Virginia Tech got into the ACC. And we can reel off any number of other examples. When the Southwest Conference imploded 30 years ago, Baylor got into the Big 12 and TCU didn’t because there were more Baylor people in charge of state government.

“So yeah, I’m surprised that didn’t exist. You’ve got a powerful governor, you’ve got the Speaker of the United States House is from the Bay Area, and it shows you how quietly this was handled by USC and UCLA. I’m kind of surprised – maybe the UCLA administrators got the ok from somebody in Sacramento that they could do this, I don’t know.”

The precedent for state government working to influence conference affiliation is evident over the years, making Maisel’s question on whether UCLA secretly came to an agreement with officials and important one for future relations between all parties.

Ivan Maisel on USC, UCLA move

Ivan Maisel also dove into whether other conferences will poach from their remaining teams.

“Well, there’s no magic to having 16 (schools),” opened Maisel. “If you can have 14, then you can have 18, you can have 20. It stands to reason that the appeal of a UW (Washington), Stanford, Cal, and Arizona State are three very good-sized metropolitan areas. And you can say the same thing about Salt Lake and Denver. Oregon has the appeal of having a bottomless wallet. So yeah, there are still some schools out there to be plucked.”

Maisel goes on to bring up a very real problem for the Pac-12 conference going forward in recruiting. With UCLA and USC both out of the picture, that leaves them without a school representing arguably the largest market in the nation in Los Angeles, CA and kids coming out of the City of Angels might have a problem with that.