The Hotline mailbag publishes weekly. Send questions to wilnerhotline@bayareanewsgroup.com and include ‘mailbag’ in the subject line. Or hit me on the social media platform X: @WilnerHotline

Some questions have been edited for clarity and brevity.

In 2026, will the new Pac-12 be as competitive, or greater than, the likes of the ACC and Big-12? — @eric_zetz

The Hotline has given this matter much thought recently while publishing a series of columns on the College Football Playoff controversy.

The conference hierarchy in 2026 and beyond is interconnected to any analysis of CFP access models, whether it’s the automatic qualifier format (4-4-2-2-1) favored by the Big Ten or the at-large format (5+11) preferred by the Big 12, ACC, SEC and Pac-12, as commissioner Teresa Gould said this week.

(In our view, the Big 12 and ACC have no choice but to push for 5+11, because the alternative is the end of those conferences as we know them.)

The Hotline does not believe — not for a second — that the rebuilt Pac-12 will be as competitively successful as the ACC and Big 12 in the next era. Although to be fair, those conferences are not entirely comparable, either.

If quality depth is the standard, the Big 12 is superior to the ACC. No conference in major college football can match the Big 12 for parity, which is both a blessing and curse.

But if judging by the number of championship-caliber programs, the ACC possesses a clear edge over the Big 12. It has two programs capable of winning the national title, Clemson and Florida State. Until proven otherwise, the Big 12 has none. (The last current Big 12 school to win it all was Colorado in 1990.)

Using either standard, the ACC and Big 12 are a level above the rebuilt Pac-12.

But here’s a question worth pondering: Is the rebuilt Pac-12 closer in quality to the ACC and Big 12 than the ACC and Big 12 are to the SEC and Big Ten? Which gap is larger?

That discussion also depends on the framing — on how you define the strength of a conference. We believe the flaws in the Big 12 (lack of elite programs) and the ACC (lack of quality depth) are significant enough, relative to the SEC and Big Ten, to make the topic worthy of tracking in the upcoming season.

For the rebuilt Pac-12 to be closer in quality to the ACC and Big 12 than they are to the SEC and Big Ten in a given season, two benchmarks are required:

— Boise State must be Boise State.

Conferences are often judged by the success of their top brands. If Ohio State and Michigan are both mediocre, the Big Ten will be viewed as having a subpar season. (Same with Georgia and Alabama in the SEC.)

Boise State is the rebuilt Pac-12’s premier football brand by a clear margin. The Broncos must have a Top 15/20-caliber season in order for the Pac-12’s reputation to rise.

— At least two of the following four teams also must be ranked: Washington State, Oregon State, Fresno State and San Diego State.

If the legacy Pac-12 programs flounder with the arrival of the Mountain West contingent, the national narrative won’t be, “The newcomers must be really good to outperform the Beavers and Cougars.” Instead, the narrative will be, “See, the rebuilt Pac-12 is no better than the old Mountain West.” One of them must win nine or 10 games on a consistent basis.

The Aztecs and Bulldogs will have a greater role in shaping the Pac-12’s reputation than the likes of Utah State and Colorado State because of their locations and their recent history of success — of regularly beating the legacy Pac-12 schools, cracking the Top 25 rankings and producing 10-win seasons.

Put another way: There’s a path for the rebuilt Pac-12 to be seen as closer in quality to the ACC and Big 12 than those conferences are to the SEC and Big Ten, but it hinges on the performance in non-conference games (obviously!) and which teams are leading the way.

If Boise State finishes as an 11-win Pac-12 champion, with Washington State and SDSU, for instance, both sitting on nine victories, the conference will look much stronger than it would if, for instance, Colorado State or Utah State finished on top.

That’s the nature of narratives. Brand success matters at every level of the sport.

From your standpoint, what would be the incentive for a school like UNLV to arrange (in mediation) a move to the Pac-12? Is it financial stability? Conference strength? — @BobhornOrAgcat

UNLV is contractually locked into the Mountain West, so the question is moot … unless, perhaps, the conference cannot meet its financial obligations.

The poaching penalty and exit fee lawsuits have, in total, roughly $150 million at stake. If only half that amount enters the Mountain West’s bank account, the distributions promised to the Rebels and others could be impacted.

Would that be enough to spur UNLV to leave? Would it change their legal commitment?

We don’t have clarity on those matters. (Few do.) And because neither the Pac-12 or Mountain West has signed a media rights agreement, there’s a leap-of-faith element for the Rebels with either course of action.

The Hotline’s view hasn’t changed: UNLV’s administration made an epically bad decision to remain in the Mountain West through the 2020s.

Our assumption is the Pac-12 would welcome the Rebels if they had a change of heart, but only for the right price. They are not a must-have school. There are no must-have schools remaining for the Pac-12. It secured the three it had to have (Boise State, San Diego State and Gonzaga) last fall.

Will Texas State receive a full share after this Pac-12/Mountain West mediation mess? I feel the Pac-12 has lost leverage on that front, unless North Texas or UTSA become a serious alternative. — @vince_per

We can’t answer that question without knowing, at the very least, the outcome of the mediation. How much of the $55 million owed to the Mountain West in poaching fees will the Pac-12 retain or relinquish?

And would the schools agree to use whatever pot of cash exists to lure Texas State, which would offer vital access to football-crazed Texas.

In our view, leverage remains with the Pac-12: The Bobcats would be foolish to pass on the chance to join a conference with Boise State football and Gonzaga basketball, especially when the annual media rights payments likely will triple or quadruple what they receive in the Sun Belt.

But it’s not entirely clear to the Hotline that anyone in the Pac-12 will receive a full share, at least in the traditional sense. The conference is considering a revenue distribution model that rewards and incentivizes success, much like the ACC has implemented.

Exactly how it will be structured, we cannot say.

The conference could use postseason revenue (NCAA Tournament and CFP) to fund an unequal distribution of cash. Or it could include a portion of the media rights revenue in the pot, as well.

What do you think about NIL and its impact on college football and basketball. And just a tad on the rest of the sports, too? I believe it will be the end of college sports as we’ve known it for so long. — Bo L

The impact of NIL, especially when combined with the transfer portal, has been momentous across many sports. Texas Tech’s success in softball, fueled by the arrival of million-dollar-pitcher NiJaree Canady from Stanford, is all the proof you need.

To the extent that amateurism mattered to your enjoyment of the competition, maybe this era marks “the end of college sports as we’ve known it.”

But the Hotline doesn’t know many college football and basketball fans who are no longer watching or attending  because players are getting paid.

As the late, great Chris Dufresne, of the LA Times, used to say: “Everyone has an alma mater.”

And that’s true whether your quarterback is getting $2 million in NIL or nothing in NIL.

Media deal timeline for the Pac-12? @TonyOnly_

One month after the lawsuits are resolved.

I hope that’s specific enough for you, because it’s as specific as the Hotline can possibly be.

Think about the situation from the standpoint of ESPN, The CW or Fox executives:

Why commit tens of millions of dollars over time to a conference that has two major lawsuits unresolved — lawsuits that could impact the membership structure, competitive success and overall outlook.

What if the Pac-12 and Mountain West end up with a court trial?

What if the Mountain West takes the Pac-12 to the cleaners?

We view those outcomes as extremely unlikely. But why would network executives take the chance? It would be tantamount to financial malpractice.

They want legal clarity and financial certainty.

The court-ordered stay of the poaching penalty lawsuit expires July 15, so we expect resolution to the mediation by that point. From there, the media rights piece should wrap up fairly quickly.

If the Pac-12 had played an eight-game conference schedule from 2014-23, would it have avoided the endless cannibalism and gotten a team in the playoffs consistently enough to still be around today in its original form? — Will D

Admittedly, the Hotline has not plowed through 10 seasons of data to offer a definitive answer. But our hunch is that yes, swapping a conference game for a non-conference cupcake might have resulted in the extra win for a given team in a given season and propelled the Pac-12 champion into the CFP more often than was actually the case.

Pac-12 teams participated in the four-team event in 2014 (Oregon), 2016 (Washington) and 2023 (Washington) and just missed on several other occasions.

If Stanford had played Sacramento State instead of Oregon in 2015 … if Oregon had played Idaho instead of Arizona State in 2019 … the Pac-12 might have been better represented in the CFP.

(Also, idiotic scheduling strategies, like asking teams to play Friday night road games after Saturday road games, contributed to a multi-year competitive malaise.)

Would more CFP teams have saved the conference? We aren’t so sure.

USC and UCLA likely would have left for the Big Ten anyway. And it’s unrealistic to think ESPN’s media rights offer would have been substantially higher in the fall of 2022 based on one or two additional playoff bids in the pre-COVID era.

The Hotline loves alternative history and hypothetical scenarios. But in this case, it’s difficult to connect a one-game change in the conference schedule to a Pac-12 survival scenario.

The seeds of destruction were largely rooted in off-the-field issues.

Is high school recruiting much less important because of the transfer portal? Players can develop at smaller schools who weren’t four- or five-star recruits but have grit and heart and the ability to improve. — @chipe

It’s absolutely less important, at least at the highest levels of the college football food chain.

The Power Four programs can swap out 25-to-33 percent of their rosters each year using the transfer portal, with Colorado as the extreme example under coach Deion Sanders. That said, strong high school recruiting, player retention and roster cohesion remain the prime ingredients for success.

At the lower end of the chain, in the Group of Five and the FCS, high school recruiting remains critical.

Those programs typically lose their top talents to the heavyweight schools through the transfer portal and NIL offers. Without quality replacements on the roster and ready to step in, consistent success is elusive and regression is, in many cases, inevitable.

Will the Pac-12 do anything to regain autonomous status back? Or has that ship already sailed? — @CelestialMosh

For those unfamiliar, “autonomous” is a legislative term established a decade ago. The so-called Autonomy Four conferences (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC) have some freedom to set their own rules within the broad NCAA structure. The Pac-12 might seek to regain A-4 status, but the odds are long.

Far more common in the college sports lexicon is the term “Power Four,” which used to be the Power Five and is specific to the College Football Playoff governance and revenue distribution models.

There is no chance of the Pac-12 regaining power conference status, in part because the term Power Four is no longer material. The Big Ten and SEC control the format for 2026 and beyond. The ACC and Big 12 can provide input but have no material authority.

Effectively, the CFP structure now has three tiers: the Power Two, the Other Two and the Group of Five.

I haven’t seen it made public how much The CW is paying for Pac-12 football. Are you able to share that amount? — @cougsguy06

Clarity on this front should emerge next spring, when the Pac-12 releases its tax returns for the 2024-25 fiscal year. The statement of revenue will include whatever cash entered the conference’s coffers from the media rights deal with The CW and Fox during the 2024 season.

Our hunch is the amount paid by The CW was roughly $1 million per game, and that’s likely the case for the 2025 media deal announced in April, as well.

But revenue for WSU and OSU during these transition seasons was a secondary consideration to exposure on linear (broadcast and cable) networks. And the deals with The CW, Fox, ESPN and CBS are providing plenty of exposure.

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