The final Pac-12 Conference Championship Game of its current iteration was a masterpiece.

Current George Kliavkoff is decidedly not to thank for that.

A few hours before the third and final time of Allegiant Stadium hosting the conference championship, I had the opportunity to speak with Kliavkoff.

He was skittish and hesitant to speak, although I did not say anything that could have been interpreted as negative.  Obviously, Kliavkoff is used to getting chewed out by fans.

Similarly, Kliavkoff was required to present the championship trophy to Kalen DeBoer, and made the handoff at top speed before removing himself from the stage.

Nobody is saying that Kliavkoff deserves to be pelted with tomatoes at every public appearance.  It needs to be understood, however, that the attitude shown by the commissioner is the same attitude that helped to doom the conference.

Too many school presidents and decision-makers seemed out of touch with what was required to keep the conference alive.

Too many people held million-dollar jobs while shirking the million-dollar consequences that inevitably followed.

Long after the confetti had fallen, with the field devoid of players, I sat on a bench on the UW sideline. I watched as the Oregon and Washington end zones were rolled up, soon to be replaced with Boise State and UNLV turf.

I watched as the Pac-12 logos were stripped away, to be replaced with Mountain West logos.

The irony wasn’t lost on me.

The so called “Conference of Champions” was now reduced to two teams.  Neither of those teams have appeared in a conference championship in quite a while.

From its inception in 1915 as the Pacific Coast Conference it survived two world wars and the Great Depression.  From 1959 through 1968 it was known as the Athletic Association of Western Universities before switching to the “Pac” brand growing from 8 to 10 in 1978 then 12 in 2011.

There are now just two.

The oldest of the conferences has always changed with the times as the West has grown.

The game was the most viewed Pac-12 championship ever, drawing over 9 million viewers.

That is not representative of a conference that has been on a slow decline for a decade.  It is an endorsement of the fact that the Pac-12 is still a viable conference in a vacuum.

The past cannot be changed.  The future, however, can be.  The Pac-12 did not go out with a 9-3 versus 9-3 championship game, or lacking national appeal. Deion Sanders and an array of exciting QBs saw to that.

Multiple coaches have spoken this year about the obvious quality of the league, and the hope for a return to normalcy in the distant future.

Who knows?  After the next media rights cycle is complete, perhaps a governing body more competent than the NCAA can work on sorting out conferences that make geographic sense.

Either way, the conference, reduced to ash, will have suffered the embarrassment of receiving the conference equivalent to the SMU death penalty.

The good?  As far as Washington fans are concerned, the Huskies stamped their names on the final edition of the conference.

No matter what happens in their College Football Championship run, those Huskies who spurned the NFL for another shot at winning something more than the Alamo Bowl have achieved one of their lofty goals.

Washington players spoke candidly in the preseason about their goals.  Going undefeated and winning a conference championship were two of them.

Outsiders may have viewed this as wishful thinking at the time, and I’m sure they will view the Huskies national championship aspirations to be wishful thinking as well.

Close games or blowouts, the Huskies have left every game with a win.

It would be crazy to think they can’t get two more—a fitting ending to Washington’s affiliation with the Conference of Champions.