Mike Sorensen: Zipper plan may be best for Pac-12

SALT LAKE CITY — One of the big unanswered questions concerning the University of Utah's move to the Pac-12 next year is which division the Utes and other schools will play in.

We did find out last week that the Utes will be playing a nine-game schedule in the Pac-12, which I found a bit surprising. That's because it will put the league at a disadvantage for national titles compared to leagues such as the SEC, which has played in four straight BCS Championship Games. We'll get back to that in a minute.

As for the division alignments, the Pac-12 athletic directors discussed those in a meeting last week and went over four or five different proposals, according to Utah A.D. Chris Hill, who said the decision may not come for a couple of months.

Hill isn't saying which of the handful of proposals is the frontrunner, but I know what I would prefer.

I call it the modified zipper. Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott calls it a "hybrid" model.

Scott has indicated that the north-south division plan may not work, mainly because that would keep half of the league's schools out of the Los Angeles market for too many years in a row.

The north-south alignment would put the two Washington schools and two Oregon schools with either Utah and Colorado or Cal and Stanford in the north and the Arizona schools with USC and UCLA in the south.

Scott also talked about the "zipper" format where each of the natural rivals is split into different divisions, but with the idea that every year teams would play their rival in a divisional "crossover" game.

For instance, Utah might play with Washington, Oregon State, Stanford, USC and Arizona State in one division with Colorado joining Washington State, Oregon, Cal, UCLA and Arizona in the other. However, every year Utah and Colorado would play each other.

The idea I like best is a modified zipper format or a hybrid as Scott called it, since it is a cross between geographical divisions and the zipper.

The best hybrid I can figure out would put Washington, Washington State, Oregon and Oregon State in a division and Utah, Colorado, Arizona and Arizona State in the other. Then the four California schools would split with one northern and southern team in each division. That way, Utah would have one of the L.A. schools and one of the Bay Area schools in its division, perhaps Stanford and UCLA.