Pac-10 wins offseason title

LOS ANGELES – The 2010 college football season – coming soon to a campus near you – faces the daunting challenge of getting the drama of its fall and winter to match its spring and summer.

The Pacific-10 Conference, of all the sleepy gym joints, caused most of the commotion by awakening from a publicity coma to make more headlines – good and bad – than it had in years.

In terms of noise levels, the league went from one kazoo to 50,000 vuvuzelas.

Led by its hotshot second-year commissioner, Larry Scott, the Pac-10 aggressively tried to become the Pac-16 and nearly knocked conference alignment off its Texas A&-axis.

The big-grab play for Texas didn’t work, ultimately saving the Big 12’s life, but Scott certainly got everyone’s attention.

Maybe he got played like a fiddle by Texas, only looking to hash out the best possible Big 12 deal for the university (and getting it).

One insider with knowledge of the negotiations said there was never more than a “50-50” chance Texas was going to bolt.

“No,” Scott countered Thursday during Pac-10 media day at the Rose Bowl. “I believed they were absolutely sincere.”

Scott had a backup plan in case Texas didn’t come – and it’s going to be called the Pac-12, probably as soon as next year. Utah is already set to join in 2011, with Colorado probably coming on board a year earlier than planned because the Big 12 wants the Buffaloes and Nebraska out in the same calendar year.

In case you didn’t hear: Nebraska is joining the Big Ten in 2011.

After years as a contented, laid-back vacation destination, the Pac-10 is putting the “pro” back in proactive.

This conference, whose headquarters are in the Bay Area (Walnut Creek) on several fault lines, is moving and shaking. There are plans for a Pac-10 TV network and notions of expanding the conference’s broadcast reach to the Pacific Rim.

Brace yourselves, though, as this offseason may have been only a preview of coming expansion distractions.

“The music has stopped … for now,” said Scott, who still believes 16-school “super” conferences will someday dominate the landscape.

So, enjoy this, the last year of relative calm. Enjoy some alliances as we’ve known them.

This is the so-far year in which the Pac-10 took college football by surprise, easily winning the offseason BCS title.

Scott: “We kind of snuck up on people.”