To start off, we are going to introduce the different conferences to those who have never watched or participated in College football. We will start with the history of each conference and then move to the rivalries of each team in the conference and finally the final "primer" piece of each will be the styles of play for each team in the conference. It is a lot to digest so we will break it up into different pieces for each without further ado...

PAC 10 History

Entering the 2007-08 season, the Pacific-10 Conference continues to uphold its tradition as the "Conference of Champions." Pac-10 members have claimed an incredible 146 NCAA team titles over the past 17 seasons, for an average of more than eight championships per academic year.

Even more impressive is the breadth of the Pac-10's success, as those 146 team titles have come in 24 different men's and women's sports. The Pac-10 has led the nation in NCAA Championships 41 of the last 47 years and finished second five times.

Spanning nearly a century of outstanding athletics achievement, the Pac-10 has captured 359 NCAA titles (254 men's, 105 women's), far outdistancing the runner-up Big Ten Conference's 212 titles.

The Conference's reputation is further proven in the annual United States Sports Academy Directors' Cup competition, the prestigious award that honors the best overall collegiate athletics programs in the country. STANFORD continued its remarkable run in the 2006-07 season, winning its 13th consecutive Directors' Cup. In the 2006-07 competition, seven of the Top-30 Division I programs were Pac-10 members: No. 1 STANFORD, No. 2 UCLA, No. 5 USC, No. 9 CALIFORNIA, No. 10 ARIZONA STATE, No. 24 ARIZONA and No. 29 WASHINGTON. The Pac-10 landed five programs in the Top-10, two more than the second-place SEC (2).

Participation in the postseason was a common occurrence for the Conference in 2006-07. Of the 22 sports sponsored by the Pac-10, 19 witnessed at least half its teams participating in NCAA or other postseason action. The men sent 62 of a possible 90 teams into the postseason (68.1 percent), while the women sent 74 of a possible 100 teams (74.0 percent).

The Pac-10 experienced continued success in football as the league sent six teams to bowl games. USC and CALIFORNIA were named co-Pac-10 Champions with identical 7-2 league records. The Trojans capped their season with a 32-18 win over Michigan in the Rose Bowl. Overall, the Pac-10 went 3-3 in postseason bowl games with ARIZONA STATE, CALIFORNIA, OREGON, OREGON STATE and UCLA also earning bowl appearances. USC, CALIFORNIA and OREGON STATE found themselves ranked in the Top-25 in the nation at the conclusion of the season, finishing fourth, 14th and 21st respectively (Associated Press).

On the men's side, Pac-10 members have won 254 NCAA team championships, far ahead of the the 195 claimed by the runner-up Big Ten. Men's NCAA crowns have come at a phenomenal rate for the Pac-10 - 15 basketball titles by five schools (more than any other conference), 49 tennis titles, 45 outdoor track and field crowns, and 26 baseball titles. Pac-10 members have won 25 of the last 38 NCAA titles in volleyball, 33 of the last 48 in water polo, and 20 total swimming and diving national championships. Individually, the Conference has produced an impressive number of NCAA men's individual champions as well, claiming 1,146 NCAA individual crowns.

The roots of the Pacific-10 Conference date back over 90 years to December 2, 1915, when the Pacific Coast Conference (PCC) was founded at a meeting at the Oregon Hotel in Portland, Ore. Original membership consisted of four schools - the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Washington, the University of Oregon, and Oregon State College (now Oregon State University). All still are charter members of the Conference.

Pacific Coast Conference play began in 1916. One year later, Washington State College (now Washington State University), was accepted into the Conference, and Stanford University joined in 1918.

In 1922, the PCC expanded to eight teams with the admission of the University of Southern California and the University of Idaho. Montana joined the Conference in 1924, and in 1928, the PCC grew to 10 members with the addition of UCLA.

The Pacific Coast Conference competed as a 10-team league until 1950, with the exception of 1943-45, when World War II curtailed intercollegiate athletic competition to a minimum. In 1950, Montana resigned from the Conference and joined the Mountain States Conference. The PCC continued as a nine-team Conference through 1958.

In 1959, the PCC was dissolved and a new Conference was formed - the Athletic Association of Western Universities. Original AAWU membership consisted of California, Stanford, Southern California, UCLA, and Washington. Washington State became a member in 1962, while Oregon and Oregon State joined in 1964. In 1968, the name Pacific-8 Conference was adopted.

Ten years later, on July 1, 1978, the University of Arizona and Arizona State University were admitted and the Pacific-10 Conference became a reality. In 1986-87, the league took on a new look, expanding to include 10 women's sports.

Currently, the Pac-10 sponsors 11 men's sports and 11 women's sports. Additionally, the Conference is a member of the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) in four other men's sports and two other women's sports.

Edwin N. Atherton was named the Conference's first Commissioner in 1940. He has been succeeded by Victor O. Schmidt (1944), Thomas J. Hamilton (1959), Wiles Hallock (1971), and current Commissioner Thomas C. Hansen in 1983.

Other Notes:

Some rumors have circulated among sports columnists and fans that the Pac-10 may one day look to add two more teams to its conference. The addition of two teams would create two divisions within the conference, similar to that of the ACC in football only and the Big 12, MAC, C-USA, and SEC in all sports.

It has been speculated that the addition of two teams would lead to a season-end football game to determine the conference champion. Taking in the account the need for the "traveling partner" arrangement among the Pac-10 schools, among some of the schools rumored to be sought after by the Pac-10 Conference would be Utah and BYU, or Nevada and UNLV, or even San Jose State (SJSU) and Fresno State.

A more persistent rumor involves San Diego State (SDSU), one of the largest of the three California State University system schools which still engage in Division I football (the other two programs are at SJSU and Fresno State) and the only one of the California State campuses which is categorized as a "Research University" by Carnegie Foundation, but a partner for SDSU never seems to materialize. See recent newspaper article and recent newspaper opinion column for more discussion of the SDSU rumors.

Furthermore, UC Davis has recently raised its athletics programs to Division I status, including Division I-AA for football. In its first ever football game against a Division I-A opponent, UC Davis defeated Stanford at famed Stanford Stadium. Since both UC Davis and SDSU are already associate members for certain Pac-10 sports, both are research universities, and both have a full complement of athletic programs, rumors are circulating that it may be possible, in the future, for them to be the two "expansion" partners for the Pac-10 Conference should UC Davis further upgrade its football program. However, in light of a known animosity of the current leadership of the non-California members of the Pac-10 Conference to add any additional California members, this proposal may never occur. The fact that UC Davis has very little athletic tradition also makes the possibility of it entering the tradition-steeped Pac-10 slim to none.

Whatever happens with Pac-10 Conference expansion, this of course would require a major realignment and would hurt the other football conferences by removing one or more of their top schools. The last cycle of conference realignments, from 2003 to 2005, was triggered by the move of only three schools from the Big East to the ACC—but resulted in a chain reaction that saw no fewer than 14 other Division I-A schools change their conference affiliation.