Seated on a couch in Husky Stadium's presidential suite, Pat Chun takes some time to reflect.
It's the first Tuesday in July. What started as an overcast morning has become a beautiful Seattle day as the city basks in the summer sun. On the field below, facilities staff install Big Ten logos where the Pac-12 shield once radiated conference pride.
For Chun, it's his 97th day as Washington's athletic director. He said he's done the math.
"I'm just trying to earn my right to be part of such a great team," Chun, who was officially appointed on March 26 after spending the past six years as Washington State's athletic director, said. "This is a veteran group of administrators that love and care for this university. Our athletics administrative team is filled with alums and former student-athletes. It's really been whatever this team needs me to do to achieve our goals.
"Knowing it's the end of the year, too, it's been a long year for everyone in our athletics apartment."
On Aug. 2, Washington will officially join the Big Ten. It's the first time UW has changed conferences since 1916, when it was a charter member of the Pacific Coast Conference, a Pac-12 predecessor.
Conference realignment has shaken up college athletics in the past. Twelve teams associated with the conferences formerly known as the Power Five changed their allegiances between 2011-14. Their football success — the financial driver for essentially every athletics department across the country — has been sparse.
So what lessons can be learned from the schools that have enjoyed some football success since switching conferences? And how does Washington's situation measure up in comparison?
Five teams have managed winning records in their new conferences. Five teams have never appeared in their conference championship game or won a division in their new conference. Only three have ever won a conference championship in their new home, with just one accomplishing that feat multiple times.
Some of these schools are fairly predictable. Once-feared Nebraska is 50-61 after jumping from the Big 12 to the Big Ten in 2011. Colorado was 28-84 during its 14-year tenure in the Pac-12. No one's had it worse than Rutgers, which is 16-72 in the Big Ten since joining from the American Athletic Conference in 2014.
So who — if anyone — has actually benefited from joining a new conference? Three football programs stand out above the rest: Utah, TCU and Pittsburgh.
Pitt joined the ACC from the collapsing Big East before the 2013 season. The Panthers are 50-40 in conference play since making the move. They went to conference championship games in 2018 and 2021, winning the latter against Wake Forest thanks to Kenny Pickett's fake-slide game.
Since joining the Big 12 from the Mountain West in 2012, TCU has a 59-49 conference record. The Horned Frogs won a share of the Big 12 title in 2014, then appeared in the conference championship game in 2022.
Despite losing the title game to Kansas State, TCU earned its first College Football Playoff berth during the same year and beat Michigan 51-45 in the Fiesta Bowl before losing the national championship game to Georgia.
Utah has enjoyed more success than any school that realigned during the early 2010s. The Utes are 65-48 since 2011 when they joined the Pac-12. They've won their division or appeared in the conference championship game five times, winning the Pac-12 in 2021 and 2022.
Chris Hill spent 31 years as Utah's athletic director before retiring in 2018. He was one of the chief architects of the Utes' move to the Pac-12. It was years in the making, Hill said. The Utes had been prepared to jump at any opportunity to join one of football's elite conferences since the 1990s.
Hill said he feels like many of the schools involved in the most recent wave of conference realignment are simply reacting to their situation without doing the crucial planning that helped the Utes find success in their new conference.
"We were playing offense, not defense," he said.
Hill identified three keys to Utah's post-realignment success. First, university leaders made a commitment to invest in athletics. Next, having continuity in the football program, specifically in longtime head coach Kyle Whittingham, was an important advantage as Utah prepared for a new conference.
Finally, Hill said Utah was able to retain key coaches and staff, and maintained a unified vision with the university about the importance of competing, not just participating, in the Pac-12
"We didn't want to just be in the Pac-12," Hill said. "We wanted to be somebody in the Pac-12."
Rising costs
Hill and the Utes athletic department knew moving to the Pac-12 was going to require more money.
The Utes were making the jump from the Group of Five to the Power Five. They already had a football training facility, but new travel costs and a higher recruiting budget were needed if Utah wanted to compete immediately.
Hill said his athletic department was allowed to take out a loan for improvements, which it had never done before, because it was debt free at the time. He added the university president and Board of Regents understood the initial investments were necessary for football, even though Utah didn't receive a full share of the Pac-12's media rights until 2014, three seasons after joining.
TCU athletic director Jeremiah Donati agreed with Hill about the importance of investment. A University of Puget Sound graduate, Donati wasn't the athletic director when the Horned Frogs made the jump from the Mountain West to the Big 12, but he was part of the department then led by Chris Del Conte, now the athletic director at Texas.
Donati said upgrading the football facilities, specifically the 2011 renovation of Amon G. Carter Stadium, was crucial to TCU's ability to compete quickly in their new conference.
"The day we were selected to go to the Big 12 was an exciting day," Donati said. "But day two of that was (asking) are we truly prepared to move into this nicer neighborhood?"
TCU's athletic department heavily leaned on its donor base. The $164 million renovation — which exceeded its initial $105-million estimate — was completely funded by contributions. This was especially important because the Horned Frogs didn't receive full shares of the Big 12's media rights payouts until the 2015-16 academic year.
Washington, similarly, won't receive full shares until the Big Ten's next media rights contract in 2030.
Its financial situation remains dire as the athletic department tries to pay off its approximately $240 million in debt for the renovation of Husky Stadium and Husky Ballpark. Add in the $30 million in one-time costs for the Big Ten move the athletic department projected for its 2025 operating budget and future revenue-sharing ramifications of the House settlement, and UW certainly doesn't have the financial flexibility of Utah and TCU.
Donati said TCU emphasized communicating with its fans about the rising costs joining the Big 12 required. The athletic department tried to be transparent about its need for investment, increasing ticket prices, premium seating models and asking for more contributions.
He admitted it took three to four years before fans started to accept the situation. Donati also acknowledged certain programs won't have fans with the "appetite" to continue donating to the athletic department as costs grow.
"If this is what you want, if this is what's important to you, then your investment needs to match that," he said. "We're going to ask more of you as fans than we've ever asked, but that's the key to success."
Football continuity
Utah, TCU and Pitt had one factor in common when they made their conference realignment moves. They all had football coaches who had long tenures at their schools.
Whittingham took over at Utah following Urban Meyer's departure for Florida before the 2005 season. He'd already led the Utes to a Mountain West championship and six bowl wins before joining the Pac-12.
Gary Patterson had enjoyed an even more productive stint, winning four Mountain West championships and a Conference USA title with the Horned Frogs. Donati said TCU felt Patterson was a massive advantage entering realignment.
Paul Chryst was Pitt's first coach as a member of the ACC. He was 10-13 during his two seasons coaching in the Panthers' new conference before leaving for Wisconsin. Pitt replaced him with former Michigan State defensive coordinator Pat Narduzzi, who's remained with the Panthers since 2015.
Washington, in comparison, is welcoming its fourth coach since 2019. Jedd Fisch has a track record of success, but his three-year stint at Arizona from 2021-23 was the longest he's ever stayed at one job since he was an offensive assistant with the Baltimore Ravens from 2004-07.
Whittingham, Patterson and Narduzzi enjoyed long tenures because they were granted patience.
Narduzzi and the Panthers went 6-5 in 2020, then won 11 games and the ACC championship in 2021. TCU, similarly, was 6-12 during its first two seasons in the Big 12, enduring a brutal 2-7 conference record during the 2013 campaign.
Yet TCU stuck with Patterson and his vision for the program. A season later in 2014, the Horned Frogs went 12-1, earning a share of the Big 12 championship with Baylor and beating Ole Miss in the Peach Bowl.
"When someone's been there for a while, they have great relationships around campus, they're trusted and respected," Donati said. "Resources tend to flow in those directions, and leaders are able to lead. That's the byproduct of sustained leadership."
University alignment
Hill's final key to conference realignment success was having a strong relationship with university leadership. Of course, Washington president Ana Mari Cauce is leaving her position after her five-year term expires in 2025.
"There's going to be some growing pains," Hill said. "There's going to be some things that aren't perfect. But I would think you need the entire university community to understand that this is an effort that's changing."
Utah also benefited from its other coaches understanding football was going to be the program's emphasis for the first few seasons in the Pac-12, Hill said. While Whittingham embraced higher expectations, Utah's other programs had to understand money was going to be diverted to make football as competitive as possible.
Washington's already lost baseball coach Jason Kelly and gymnastics coach Jen Llewellyn to Texas A&M and Iowa, respectively.
Having alignment also means supporting a program's leadership, even during a difficult season. In a statement to The Seattle Times, Pitt athletic director Heather Lyke said they chose to continue with Narduzzi because the university, athletic department and football program was dedicated to the overall vision they were pursuing.
"We knew the best was yet to come under Pat Narduzzi's leadership," she said, "and the result was 20 wins the next two seasons."
These decisions on coaching staffs will get even more difficult in the Big Ten, where talent has been consolidated and reaching double figures in wins will become increasingly challenging, Donati said.
"You're going into a conference where — guess what — you didn't shake Oregon, UCLA or USC," Donati said. "And now you've got Ohio State, Penn State, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa staring right at you.
"It's just going to be harder to have those seasons."
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