Two weeks ago, George Kliavkoff, the commissioner of the Pac-12 Conference, stood on a Las Vegas nightclub stage and — after a video montage celebrating the league’s rich history of star quarterbacks that runs to the present — confidently proclaimed a bright future.
A new media rights deal would be announced “in the near future,” he said at the conference’s football media day. The impending agreement would lock in 10 schools and pave the way for expansion, eliminating the uncertainty that had hovered over the Pac-12 since the University of Southern California and U.C.L.A. had bolted for the Big Ten last summer.