The Pac-12 Conference, which will drop down to two members this summer, will no longer be an “autonomous conference,” the NCAA Division I Board of Directors determined on Monday, effective Aug. 2. It will instead be classified as a “nonautonomous FBS conference” like the Group of 5.
The board created new governance thresholds for conferences that fall below membership requirements. As a result, the Pac-12 will lose representation on the Board of Directors. It will retain representation and voting rights on the Division I Council, the Football Oversight Committee and the Division I Student-Athlete Advisory Committee when applicable, but the weight of its Council vote will be diminished.
Multi-sport conferences are required to have at least eight members, but in the event they drop below that number, they are allowed a two-year grace period to get back up. The Pac-12 will lose 10 schools to the Big Ten, Big 12 and ACC this summer, leaving only Oregon State and Washington State. The board’s determinations on Monday apply to conferences in that grace period.
In 2014, the board created a new “autonomy” model, granting the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC the ability to make some of their own rules together, which happened the next year with full cost-of-attendance…
