— From George Schroeder Remember the plan for Big Ten and Pac-12 to play each other in the regular season every year? It's off now. The Pac-12 began setting the stage for this a few weeks ago as the playoff was taking shape. With nine conference games, the Pac-12 has every team in the league committed to more tough games than any conference that doesn't have nine-game schedules. Adding this arrangement would basically mean a 10-game conference schedule (only one of them doesn't matter towards the league title). The Pac-12 only wanted to go forward with this if there was going to be a firm strength of schedule component to the playoff selection process. With this agreement being put on ice, it likely means that no such restriction will be put on the committee. They will consider strength of schedule, of course, but it appears that no independent SOS measure will compel them to do anything. Thus, the Pac-12 bailed. Here's your press release from both conferences. Each cites the Pac-12's nine-game schedule as the main issue.