Pac 12 Logo: Analyzing the Pac 12's New Look After Realignment

The Pac 10 Conference will begin athletic play as the Pac 12 Conference once the 2011-2012 academic year starts. With the addition of the Colorado Buffaloes and Utah Utes, the Pac 12 will now put themselves in a position to hold a conference football championship game.

Colorado and Utah were accepted as new members of the Pac 10 last June and will officially make the Conference the Pac 12 on July 1, 2011.

The conference will split into two divisions when the two newest acquisitions join, and they are hopeful that it will breed some new rivalries to ignite the excitement.

But while the teams and number may have changed, the logo basically remained the exact same. All they did was change the zero to a two.

No one ever said that the Pac 12 was full of creative geniuses.

The old Pac 10 Conference featured 10 teams from four states:

Arizona and Arizona State (AZ)

California, Stanford, UCLA and USC (CA)

Oregon and Oregon State (OR)

Washington and Washington State (WA)

They all played in one conference without separate divisions for all sports, and the natural rivalries were already in place due to the inter-state matchups.

USC and UCLA remain as two of the top rivalries in the country, while Arizona and Arizona battle every year for the Territorial Cup, Oregon and Oregon State fight in the annual Civil War. Washington and Washington State look to capture the yearly Apple Cup in college football.

In the new Pac 12 realignment, USC and UCLA will not be in the same division as Cal and Stanford.

Yet although the Trojans and Bruins will not be in the same division as the Golden Bears and Cardinal, the Southern California schools will face their Northern California rivals every year.

Hey, they have to keep some sort of tradition.

In football, each team will play nine conference games, including five against divisional rivals and four against schools from the other division. The new format features yearly inter-divisional games between the Northern and Southern California teams.

The Pac 12 championship game will take place in December at the home site of the conference’s highest-seeded team, opposed to a neutral site like the majority of the other power conferences.

But the news of the day is the conference's new logo video.

Again, the creativity is absolutely phenomenal.

The new Pac 12 with be split into two divisions: North and South.

No, not too clever, but it is better than the Legends and the Leaders, right?

North

California
Stanford
Oregon
Oregon State
Washington
Washington State

South

USC
UCLA
Arizona
Arizona State
Colorado
Utah

The new Pac 12 will be slightly stronger in football and a little better in basketball. 

Colorado has been playing better basketball lately, so they should give the conference a boost for ratings in hoops.

Utah was once known as a decent basketball team, but they are leaving their biggest impressions in college football over the past decade.

Overall, the conference may expand by two teams, but they really will not move up much in the overall conference rankings.

In fact, due to what some of the other conferences have done as far as new additions are concerned, the Pac 12 may be no better off then the Pac 10.