Last June, less than a month before his first official day as Pac-12 commissioner, George Kliavkoff was shadowing outgoing commissioner Larry Scott at the Big Ten offices in Chicago during one of the most significant discussions about expanding the College Football Playoff.
The former media guru with no prior collegiate experience posed for a photo with the 10 acting FBS commissioners -- what he later called the #CFPClassPhoto. Scott was the only person in the picture he had met before. Optimism ran high.
"Over the next month," Kliavkoff told ESPN this week, "I think there was a general assumption that everything would be approved as recommended.