On Friday, the Big Ten and Pac-12 announced that the two conferences had to dissolve their agreement from December to form a scheduling partnership due to football scheduling issues involved with several schools in the Pac-12. Starting in 2017, the partnership would have seen 12 games per year between the conferences, with the central focus surrounding a round-robin football schedule.
According to ESPN, the Pac-12 approached the Big Ten in March due to concerns voiced by several schools in the conference over the potential taxing nature of the proposed schedule. Via ESPN:
"We are disappointed to announce today that the Big Ten/Pac-12 strategic collaboration announced jointly in December 2011 unfortunately will not be consummated," Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany said in a statement. "We recently learned from Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott that the complications associated with coordinating a nonconference football schedule for 24 teams across two conferences proved to be too difficult. Those complications, among other things, included the Pac-12's nine-game conference schedule and previous nonconference commitments.
With the partnership now defunct, the Big Ten will potentially increase the amount conference games from eight to nine.
Jim Delany in May: "If we hadn’t done the collaboration, we’d do 9(-game league season). If we do the collaboration, we’ll do 8"
— Kyle Meinke (@kmeinke) July 13, 2012
