RandBall: The zombie Pac-12 has a taste for Mountain West flesh

The Big Ten has a math problem, but it’s the preferable one to the alternative.

The conference has 18 teams, eight more than its name would suggest, and leaders should probably resist any urge to tweak the name until they add two more teams and make it 20 (at which point they could call it the Big Tens).

In fairness, the Big Ten hasn’t had 10 teams in the more than three decades since Penn State joined. But it was the recent expansion from 12 to 14, then 18, that pushed this into the theater of the absurd.

The four most recent Big Ten additions were also subtractions from the Pac-12, leaving that conference with a far more precarious math problem.

The Pac-12 is down to two teams, noticeably fewer than 12. Washington State and Oregon State can’t play each other ad nauseum; to exist as a conference you need at least eight teams. What would seem to make the most sense is for those two schools to find another place to play.

But instead, we learned Wednesday that the zombie Pac-12 is not going away quietly. It is stumbling forward with a taste for Mountain West flesh, as I talked about on Thursday’s Daily Delivery podcast.

Per reports, four Mountain West schools are bolting for the Pac-12: Boise State, Colorado State, San Diego State and Fresno State. The news that the Pac-12 has unanimously accepted those four schools is expected to be official Thursday.

But is this hollowed out husk of a power conference really the Pac-12? The best comparison I saw on social media is this is akin to seeing a band you used to love, under the same name, but without most (or any) of the original members.

Why even bother? Ah, I’m sure it’s for the love and purity of amateur-ish athletics. Wait, sorry, it’s actually probably about money. The Pac-12 still has value as a property in media rights deals and it can afford to pay these schools to join the league.

Boise State and Co. can use that money to ramp up their programs, making them legitimate enough that sports fans channel surfing late at night will still stop and watch, say, San Diego State vs. Colorado State.

But make no mistake: This is the Pac-12 in name only, the hollowed out husk that remains after the college sports zombie apocalypse.

Here are four more things to know today: