Ghosts of Conferences Past

 Sunday morning now after the big Championship Weekend in college football, and spirits walk restlessly among us. Apparently you can kill certain conferences deader than dead (or steal major chunks of their lifeforce), but, like Michael Myers, they will rise again to terrorize poor Jamie Lee Curtis or whatever.

Remember the Pac-12, for instance?

Sure you do. USC, UCLA, Stanford, various Ducks and Sun Devils and Huskies and Beavers. All just a memory now, with half the conference defecting to the Big Ten (The Big Ten! Those ancient Rose Bowl archenemies!), and the rest scattering to the Mountain West or Big 12 or wherever.

Except.

Except did you see what happened yesterday?

The Oregon Ducks, a Pac-12 refugee, beat Penn State to win the Big Ten championship.

The Arizona State Sun Devils, another Pac-12 refugee, slapped around Iowa State to win the Big 12 championship.

Texas, which fled the Big 12 for the SEC, lost in overtime to Georgia in that conference's championship game. SMU, formerly of the American Athletic Conference, reached the ACC title game before losing to Clemson.

So to review: Two teams from a dead conference hoisted another conference's trophies;  two strays played for the championship of the conferences that took them in.

You can call that parity or water seeking its own level or just the SEC, ACC and Big Ten stealing football programs from their rightful owners, but the Blob prefers to call it something else. Especially in the case of Oregon and Arizona State, I just think of it as the Ghosts of Conferences Past getting revenge on their usurpers.

All these years after Bo and Woody 'n' them, and the Big Ten still can't beat the Pac-12 in the big one. And just when the former thought it was safe from the latter when the Rose Bowl stopped being an exclusive Big Ten-vs.-Pac-12 deal.

Oregon 45, Penn State 38 last night?

Somewhere Anthony Davis is doing his end-zone knee dance again ... and Jim Plunkett or Warren Moon or Andrew Luck is throwing another touchdown pass ... and Ricky Marcus Bell-Allen is gobbling up miles of real estate out of  Student Body Right.

Rattling their ghostly chains all the while.