Bill Connelly May 29, 2026, 07:15 AM ET Close Bill Connelly is a writer for ESPN. He covers college football, soccer and tennis. He has been at ESPN since 2019. With a few years of exceptions, Oregon State and Washington State have been members of the Pac-12 -- or its forebears, the Pac-10, Pac-8, Athletic Association of Western Universities and Pacific Coast Conference -- for 110 years. They once shared the conference with Washington and Oregon, Cal and Stanford, USC and UCLA, Montana and Idaho, Arizona and Arizona State and Colorado and Utah. And now, two years after they were abandoned in the last round of conference realignment and forced to set up a scheduling arrangement with the Mountain West and, in 2025, play each other twice, they've found some new bandmates. In 2026, the new-look Pac-12 begins play with six new teams, a fun flex-week idea and the best projected average SP+ rating of any conference in the Group of 6. It isn't a power conference, but it should be the best of the rest.…