Southern California and UCLA are leaving the Pac-12 for the Big Ten in 2024, a bombshell move that stunned the world of college athletics on Thursday.
Both institutions confirmed the news Thursday evening after the conference voted to accept them and expand to 16 teams.
The move also comes less than a year after the Big Ten, Pac-12 and ACC announced a strategic "alliance" that would focus on competitive inter-conference scheduling in football and men's and women's basketball -- and came with an implicit agreement that member institutions would not leave one "alliance" conference for another.
USC joined the Pac-12, then called the Pacific Coast Conference, in 1922 while UCLA joined in 1928.