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First it was sidling up beside USC and Stanford. Next it could be Wisconsin in Rice-Eccles Stadium or Michigan State in the Huntsman Center.
Yes, this whole Pac-12 thing has been mighty good to the Utah Utes, who, thanks to their new conference, find themselves included in perhaps the most innovative arrangement in college sports.
The Pac-12 and Big Ten conferences announced Wednesday a collaborative plan for guaranteed annual non-conference matchups between their teams.
The agreement spans all sports, and outside of football the arrangement could begin to manifest as early as the 2011-12 academic year. Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott and Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany said Wednesday that the goal in football is for each Pac-12 school to have a Big Ten team on its nonconference schedule by 2017, although others will likely take place before then.
"It's again a benefit of our entry to the Pac-12," Utah Athletic Director Chris Hill said, "that we have the opportunity to play schools that we wouldn't have had the chance to play home and home before."
The Utes have hosted only one Big Ten school in their history, Indiana, which they defeated in 2002. Utah has traveled to play Big Ten schools four times since 1990.
Delany and Scott trumpeted the marriage between conferences as a natural fit. The football champions from each conference have met annually in the Rose Bowl since 1947. Together, the conferences can now point to a footprint that links the United States' north-south borders, and stretches from the Pacific Coast to Pennsylvania.
The agreement represents a strengthened commitment from each conference to maintain 12 member schools.
"I think this is a recognition for our presidents that there are creative ways to have a more national platform and achieve many of the benefits of expansion without having to expand," Scott said.
The Pac-12 will launch its own television network in August, and the Big Ten Network is in its fifth year. Both commissioners said the plan was partially born out of a desire to be able to air marquee matchups in basketball and Olympic sports. Basketball games could eventually exist in a format similar to the ACC-Big Ten Challenge, in which teams from the two power conferences square off over two days.
"I think we'll be able to create games that have more meaning because of how they're packaged together," Delany said.
He added, "Those can become more important contests as part of a conference versus conference format."
Similarly, other details of how the partnership will come together are still being ironed out. Scott said preliminary conversations have taken place regarding a festival of baseball games at Dodger Stadium. Delany mentioned Yankee Stadium as a possibility. There have been discussions about preseason games at the Rose Bowl and Soldier Field, they said.
The plan isn't without potential pitfalls. Each commissioner acknowledged that guaranteeing a football game against a BCS Conference opponent each year would make it more difficult for a team to go undefeated and reach the national championship game.
Assuming the Pac-12 remains committed to a schedule of nine conference games, which Scott said he expected would be addressed among the conference leaders, each Pac-12 team will have room to schedule just two non-conference games outside of the agreement with the Big Ten.
Utah is already scheduled to play Utah State and Brigham Young next fall, and are locked into games against the Aggies through 2014. Hill said he did not know when the Utes would begin playing Big Ten teams, only that it would not be next season.
"We've got to get together with the other Pac-12 schools and find out a few things," Hill said, "like who has openings in the Big Ten, and try to put some matches together."
boram@sltrib.comTwitter: @oramb