The impact of the Pac-12 Conference’s disintegration last August – let’s just stipulate that what’s left isn’t the Pac-12 as we’ve known it – was not only vast, but wasn’t confined to athletes, coaches, administrators or even fans.
Plenty of employees of the conference itself found their lives upended, including those who worked for the Pac-12 Networks, be it as on-air talent or behind-the-camera people. Say what you will about the way the conference’s cable TV arm was created and marketed – inefficiently is the most polite term – but talented people who helped develop that programming were in many cases out in the cold.
A fortunate few survived the upheaval. Yogi Roth, a color analyst on Pac-12 Networks football broadcasts, now will do the same for the Big Ten Network. He will be joined in that endeavor by former Pac-12 Networks host Ashley Adamson, play-by-play man Guy Haberman and some others.
But …
“I know how fortunate I am to have landed in a really healthy and positive place, and still able to live out the dream that I had when I was eight years old, calling my own games in the backyard in rural Pennsylvania,” Roth said in a recent phone conversation. “But I always will think of the 200 people that are still without a job, by no fault of their own.
“And that’s the thing that I think will always eat at me. And that’s the thing that I’m always going to try to pump up is the really talented producers, editors, directors, cinematographers, you know, junior editors, you name it. … There’s just so many gifted people at the Pac-12 that had nothing to do with the lack of distribution or, the media rights deals that were presented to the presidents. So I’ll start with that. I’ll always promote them.”
Roth, who turns 43 next month, was a walk-on quarterback at Pitt and an assistant coach on Pete Carroll’s staff during the 2000s at USC, as well as earning a master’s degree in communications management from the university’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. He is a published author, among his books a collaboration with Carroll in 2010 and a guide for college-hopeful high school quarterbacks, “5-Star QB,” in 2022. He has hosted and produced documentaries and films as well as his work for the Pac-12 Network, ESPN and Fox.
And in an attempt to carry the banner of West Coast football, even as the region’s programs have mostly scattered to other conferences, Roth hosts a podcast and Substack newsletter, Y-Option. The most recent episode is an interview with Carroll, and listening to it you can understand why USC is bringing the old coach back as a lecturer. He still has a lot to offer.
Roth said he launched that platform because “I want to make sure I’m offering college football through the lens of the West Coast. So if I’m going to do that, then I need to know more of the country, too.
“And it’ll be fun to talk about Ohio State and Penn State through the lens of the West Coast, because when you go to those places you feel how large, how massive those programs are. (With) Indiana and Purdue, it’s a big deal in their communities. And they don’t view the West Coast schools the same like the people who live out here do.”
Which brings us to his new assignment. Roth will be covering the entire Big Ten and not just the four newcomers from the West. Since he’s based in Los Angeles, I asked him how his air miles would stack up compared to the 22,000 that UCLA will travel during this football season (which, in fairness, includes nonconference trips to Hawaii this week and to LSU Sept. on 21).
“Probably more, I’d imagine,” he said. And his itineraries will include more rental car miles as well, given the distances of some campuses from major airports. (Penn State, for example, is a 138-mile drive from Pittsburgh, 195 miles from Philadelphia and 97 miles from Harrisburg).
“I drove in the middle of the night with our crew from Penn State to Rutgers” during preseason training camp visits, he said. That jaunt, by the way, is 229 miles, or 3½ hours.
“The longest drive I ever did (out here) was like Oregon State to Oregon, or Cal to Stanford, like an hour,” he said. “So, yeah, it’s different. But I’m embracing it.”
The difference – new conference, new schools, new cities and towns – should be invigorating. And considering what college football has been through the past few years, with realignment shaking the landscape and the underpinnings of college sports transformed by the transfer portal, the NIL revolution and the upcoming revenue sharing mechanism as part of the House v. NCAA settlement, just being able to think about and talk about the game itself is refreshing.
Roth talked about going to the Big Ten Media Days in Indianapolis at the end of July and seeing all of the logos together. “I got to be honest, I was thinking, ‘Wow’,” he said. “It’s kind of like the NFL. You look at Rutgers to Ohio State, Michigan to Iowa, Nebraska to Oregon and everybody else. It was just really cool to look at that.”
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There’s going to be a freshness going into this season. We will miss seeing Stanford and Cal as the longtime in-state adversaries of USC and UCLA, but there will be new challenges, new environments, and maybe a tantalizing sense of the unknown as well.
“I’m pumped to go to Columbus, and go to Ann Arbor, and go to East Lansing and see those games, and just really be entertained by where we are now in this season of college football, versus complaining about it,” Roth said.
And maybe this is the best way to approach it for all concerned: The off-field drama is over, at least for a while (and maybe not so much in the Atlantic Coast Conference and particularly at Florida State and Clemson). Now it’s time to watch the games.
“I kind of made a decision before the season, where I just said, ‘You know what, Yogi, be entertained by all this. Just be entertained by it versus be frustrated by it or be a pessimist around it.’ That’s what I’ve chosen to do.”
It’s the best choice available.
jalexander@scng.com
