The Pac-12 can go out on top with a Washington win over Michigan.
The College Football Playoff championship is quite the stage for Washington and Michigan to get reacquainted with each other.
The teams play for the national title on Monday night (6:30 p.m., ESPN). Starting next season, they’ll compete against each other for Big Ten titles.
“I imagine all the Big Ten folks in Chicago in the office, they’re sitting like a rat in a cheese factory right now for sure,” said Washington co-defensive coordinator William Inge, who was a graduate assistant at Iowa and assistant at Indiana for seven years.
The Big Ten’s coast-to-coast expansion began in the summer of 2022 when it voted in Southern California and UCLA beginning in 2024. The Pac-12’s demolition was assured just over a year later when it failed to land a lucrative media rights contract. Oregon and Washington in August accepted invitations from the Big Ten. Colorado, Utah, Arizona and Arizona State bolted to the Big 12. California and Stanford landed with the ACC.
“The Big Ten goes into 2024 with the national championship. We can write that now,” Big Ten Network analyst Gerry DiNardo said.
Washington and Michigan have met 13 times previously, most recently in 2021, and are scheduled to play a regular-season game in Seattle on Oct. 5.
DiNardo, the head coach at Indiana from 2002-04, said the entry of Washington and the other three schools comes at a fortuitous time.
