(Written by kencraw)

The conference announced the schedule for 2011 and the rotation moving forward. You can view both here.

So here’s what it means for Cal: (UPDATE at 1:45 PM:… I misread the schedule… updates below in bold/italic)

Every year we’ll play UW, WSU, Oregon, Oregon State, Stanford in division. Then we’ll also play USC and UCLA as cross-division rivals. (This of course, we already knew.) Then we’ll alternate between playing ASU and Utah in the odd numbered years (i.e. next year, 2013, etc.) first two years (2011-2012, assumably doing a home and home) and Arizona and Colorado in even numbered years (2012, 2014, etc.) the following two years (2013-2014). That four year cycle repeats indefinitely from there (the listed shedule goes to 2018). (That’s the new revelation.)

Stanford’s schedule will be identical to us, just flip which years they play UA/CU and ASU/Utah.

USC and UCLA have a similarly conceived setup, playing everyone in the south (AZ (UA and ASU) and mountain (CU and Utah) schools) every year along with Cal and Stanford for their every-year cross-division rivals. Then they play a pair of the Northwest schools (Oregon and UW make one pair and WSU and Oregon State make the other). UCLA gets the WSU/OSU pair in odd numbered years the first two years and the OU/UW pair in even numbered years the two years after that and USC gets the opposite.

You can extrapolate everyone else’s schedule, minus which other team from the south the Northwest schools miss each year, from that, but the key news is that the Northwest schools play either USC or UCLA every year, alternating between the two each year playing the same team for two years in a row and then switching to the other (again assumably as a home and home).

It’s a classic, very formulaic Pac-10 minded schedule, just with all the extra provisions that the Pac-12 and it’s annual rivalries require.

I’ll leave the specific of when we play who in 2011 for after the season, because it’ll likely change as non-conference and bye-week tweeks get made, except to say one thing: Just as I predicted on last week’s EMFMV podcast, EVERY Pac-12 school has a game scheduled for Thanksgiving weekend, something that in the past has been fairly rare (at most there would be two games). Now that the last week of the season is reserved for the conference championship game, there’s no other way around the block if you want a bye in the middle of the season.

Told-ya-so! 🙂