Oregon Ducks Football
The multi-dimensional job responsibilities of a Pac-10 athletic director just got a little more varied. Recent approval by the NCAA board of directors of an annual 12-game football schedule will mean not only a full round-robin in the Pac-10, but some reassessment on intersectional opponents and television opportunities.
"It's purely about money," conceded Bob DeCarolis, the athletic director at Oregon State, referring to the NCAA's decision — not entirely unexpected — to give the go-ahead to 12-game schedules starting in 2006.
Among other things, the extra game means the model changes for most big-bucks schools like Washington. With an 11-game schedule, the Huskies usually played six home games, but now the norm will be seven, adding roughly a $2 million gross gate to a strapped budget.
For players and fans, there's a sharper change: Assuming ratification by the Pac-10 CEOs early this month, the league schedules that were in place starting in 2006 will be torn up and replaced by a full, nine-game round-robin. The two-year cycle of "misses" — Oregon, for instance, missed USC in the last two seasons of Troy national championships — will be a thing of the past.
The other big change will be timing, and possibly television.
In 2006, the Apple Cup is scheduled to be the only one of the five traditional-rivalry games played before Thanksgiving, which means no bye week for either Washington or Washington State. In 2007, Cal-Stanford joins the Apple Cup the Saturday before Thanksgiving, but the other three will come after.
In fact, in reference to the Civil War meeting and Thanksgiving weekend, DeCarolis says, "I'm of the assumption that game moves [to the post-Thanksgiving slot] permanently."
"I'm totally opposed to playing after Thanksgiving," said Mike Bellotti, the Oregon coach. "I feel that's the one holiday parents, coaches and players can look forward to. With bowl games, we often don't have the Christmas holiday."
Starting in 2006, it's a choice. Either play 12 weeks in a row and finish before Thanksgiving, or take a bye and finish after
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