Sooooooooo...You're proposing a "Pac 14"???? 
Your list looks pretty good to me, but I'd add CSUS (Sacramento State) to "Pac West", and go out there and recruit another to join "Pac East".
Your list looks pretty good to me, but I'd add CSUS (Sacramento State) to "Pac West", and go out there and recruit another to join "Pac East".
The keys are: No real deadweight dregs (Although UNLV would look better than Utah State), represents arguably the best teams available outside Power 4, and regional divisions limit extensive travel.
To illustrate, here is a mock schedule in this imaginary league for Memphis, which cited extensive travel as a negative determining factor in rejecting the initial offer:
Memphis Mock Schedule
Middle Tennessee (Non-Conference)
Troy (Non-Conference)
@Florida State (Non-Conference)
@USF
Washington State
@Houston (Non-Conference)
@Colorado State
UTSA
San Diego State
@Bosie State
UConn
@Tulane
With that system every team (except UConn) has only 1 to 2 road game flights over 5 hours a season. Much better than Cal and Stanford in the ACC.
It’s important to emphasize, the AAC 4 and UConn already rejected an offer, and GCU is only rumored to have interest. Does Gonzaga change the calculus on that? We’ll have to wait a few months until after the media rights evaluation:
Link: PAC-12 Pausing Expansion Efforts
Regardless, I don’t think it’s their aim to expand that much. At least not for now. I think they were targeting a “skinny rebuild” with 9 football members (WSU, OSU, SDSU, Boise, Colorado, Fresno, Memphis, Tulane, USF) plus Gonzaga for basketball, but had to pivot on the fly when the AAC teams rejected the offer.
I think they get their media rights evaluation, then use it to lure the two most valuable brands who will say yes, and top out at 9 members, so they can have 8 game conference schedules
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