It appears the Pac-10 is now favoring a North/South split for its divisions for the future twelve team conference. This is pretty surprising news because it looked like the conference was leaning toward the zipper format that gained popularity over the past couple of months.
The current plan would put Utah in the same division as Colorado, the Washington and Oregon schools, while the South Division would couple the California schools with Arizona and Arizona State.
Personally, I don't like the idea of having all the California schools together in one division. I think it consolidates the power in the south and creates an unbalanced conference that ultimately might find itself in the state of the current Big 12 - where one division thoroughly dominates the other.
Of course, the P-10 is ready to force concessions to appease the northern schools and that could come via television scheduling and potential changes in television revenue.
Obviously this is not set in stone and it won't be until October that things are finalized. But it does appear one thing is clear - the Pac-12 will have a nine game schedule. That does not seem to be up for negotiation.