Kevin Warren, who engineered USC-UCLA move, leaves his post as Big Ten Commissioner
Kevin Warren was able to pull off the deal which brought USC and UCLA to the Big Ten Conference, but he won’t be the commissioner of the Big Ten when the Trojans and Bruins settle into their new home in 2024.
Bears Wire and the rest of the football world learned that the Chicago Bears have brought aboard Warren as their new president. Warren previously served as an executive with the Minnesota Vikings. He then took over from Jim Delany as the commissioner of the Big Ten.
Warren’s tenure as Big Ten commish was fascinating for many different reasons. His handling of the pandemic in 2020 was met with fierce criticism. The Pac-12 and former commissioner Larry Scott followed the Big Ten’s lead in cancelling their 2020 football season before reversing course. This is why the Big Ten and Pac-12 both had 2020 football seasons which were shorter than their counterparts in the SEC, Big 12, and ACC. Warren did not emerge as a strong figure after that 2020 season. Yet, if he wasn’t a strong figure then, his lack of strength and leverage didn’t last very long.
Warren and Pac-12 Commissioner George Kliavkoff joined the ACC in forming a so-called alliance which had the stated intent of creating alignment in scheduling and other matters, but that alliance was blown up on June 30, 2022, when Warren shocked the college sports world by successfully bringing USC and UCLA to the Big Ten.
Warren leaves the Big Ten before its 2024 scheduling format will be announced for football and men’s basketball. It is an obvious point of interest to see how USC football and basketball is scheduled within the Big Ten’s new 16-team structure, though we know that the Big Ten won’t use the divisional structure it has used the past decade.
Follow our various Big Ten College Wire sites for more on Big Ten football and basketball scheduling.
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