The Pac 10 has added Colorado and Utah in the summer so the league now has 12 teams. In the next month they are going to need to decide whether to have a championship game and if they do then they will need to divide into 2 divisions. It is almost a certainty that they will vote to have a championship game so the big question is how are they going to split the league.
My first thought is that would be easy as geography pretty much determines half the decision. I can say with pretty much certainty that the league will be split basically North and South with these divisions.
North - Oregon, Oregon St, Washington, Washington St
South - Arizona, Arizona St
When this was first announced I figured they'd just use geography and send the new schools south with USC/UCLA while Stanford/California went north. This would be the result:
Geographic Option
North - Oregon, Oregon St, Washington, Washington St, Cal, Stanford
South - Arizona, Arizona St, Utah, Colorado, USC, UCLA
This would make the most sense and like the Big Ten it has virtually no chance of happening. Politics has entered the discussion and there are two blocks fighting to decide how to split the league. The first block is the California block as they want to stay in the same division. If they get their way the league would look like this:
California Option
North - Oregon, Oregon St, Washington, Washington St, Colorado, Utah
South - Arizona, Arizona St, USC, UCLA, Stanford, Cal
The Northern schools aren't happy with this solution as it would keep them out of California and this is unacceptable because California has the most high school football talent on West Coast. Keeping them out of California would make it much tougher for them to attract the best talent to attend their school and these 4 schools are going to vote as a block to make sure this doesn't happen. In fact, since you could make a good argument that Los Angeles has the highest concentration of football talent in the country, the northern schools want USC/UCLA in their league. This has lead to the following proposal:
Big Ten Option
North - Oregon, Oregon St, Washington, Washington St, USC/UCLA, Stanford/Cal
South - Arizona, Arizona St, Colorado, Utah, USC/UCLA, Stanford/Cal
Since the California schools and the Northern schools each have 4 votes it may come down to which option the Arizona schools decide to back. The other issue is like the Big Ten, the league will want to create the best opportunity for a championship game that people will want to watch. There are really only 2 historical powers in the Pac 10 - USC and UCLA but recently only USC has lived up to that title. The big question is where do you place them. One way is to look at the past to make sure you end up with the most "competitive" divisions. Here are the wins for the last 20 years:
USC - 170
Oregon - 157
UCLA - 136
Washington - 131
Arizona, Arizona St, Cal - 120-127
Oregon St, Washington St, Stanford - 107-110
Colorado - 145 (Big 12)
Utah - 157 (overrated Mountain West wins)
Looking at this, I think you can make a pretty good argument that excluding the California schools the "Big Ten" option would be very competitive assuming Colorado can turn their program around. The fairest split appears to be USC with Stanford and UCLA with Cal. Ultimately the vote probably depends on what Arizona wants and my guess is they'd prefer to be in the division opposite from USC:
Big Ten option (my split)
North - Oregon, Oregon St, Washington, Washington St, USC, Stanford
South - Arizona, Arizona St, UCLA, Cal, Utah, Colorado
Of course there will be protected rivalries with USC-UCLA and Cal-Stanford -- the rest will be made up. The big question will be when will these teams play and my guess would be they'd play in early November but they may run into the same issues as the Ohio State Michigan game. It really depends on the USC-UCLA fans but I'm guessing they don't care much.
Ultimately I'd prefer the geographic option but I think in the end the "Big Ten" option will win. Only time will tell.
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