Big Ten, Big 12, ACC are clamoring for Pac-12's championship legacy

The Pac-12 conference hasn't been virtually dead for a whole 24 hours yet. Even before the 10 member schools that left for other power conferences officially joined their new homes Friday, though, the Big Ten, Big 12 and Atlantic Coast Conferences were already claiming past athletes and legacies as their own.

Specifically, at the Paris Olympics, where athletes who competed in the Pac-12 as recently as spring 2024 are showing out for their home countries. Conferences have been posting congratulatory messages on social media connecting those athletes' successes to the new competitive home of their alma maters.

For example, the Big 12 — which added Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah on Friday — attempted to capitalize on the historic performances of Pac-12 and NCAA champion Leon Marchand, a rising senior at Arizona State. But Marchand never swam a meter in the Big 12 conference and never will as he turned pro in April .

And Wednesday the ACC posted on X about Stanford alum Katie Ledecky's gold medal in the women's 1500 freestyle — as if her time at the West Coast university, which she graduated from in 2021 when it was still part of the Pac-12, is synonymous with the famously East Coast conference. X users stepped in and corrected the post with clever community notes.

This appears to only be the ugly start of each conference clamoring to claim the Pac-12's overall legacy as the "Conference of Champions."

To fully appreciate what that means, reflect on these impressive stats.

The Pac-12 had won more national championships than any other conference with 561. That's 260 more than the next closest — the Big Ten. Just in the 21st century alone, the Pac-12 had 223 team national championships .

In 57 of the last 63 years, the Pac-12 led or tied the nation for the most national championships in an academic year — including the past 18 years.

The conference didn't lack for Olympic success, either. In fact, it was a trademark. USC, Stanford, UCLA and California — in that order — have accounted for the most Olympic medals . Not only that, combined they have more gold medals than the next 10 schools on the list — which includes former members Washington and Arizona.

So, it's understandable that the inheriting conferences would want to assert valuable connections to get a leg up on each other and the seemingly ever-dominant (at least on the gridiron) South Eastern Conference.

Some will maintain the Pac-12 isn't actually gone, as Oregon State and Washington State defiantly remain but, alas, their two team "conference" exists as the Pac-12 in name only.

With their athletic schedules preserving only in-state rivalries where possible, a gradual merge with the Mountain West Conference is their most likely fate.

Regardless, die-hard Pac-12 fans deserve sympathy today as the constantly changing college athletics landscape greedily consumes the former powerhouse conference.