[CTcard]

The zipper idea was tossed around in the media, on blogs, and in discussion groups, but it was not originally the conference's idea, but Wilner's. It's not even clear whether the conference itself discussed it.

True, and the zipper meant that each of the natural rivals would be in opposite divisions. The one guaranteed game against the other division each year would be your rival. The rest would rotate.

So, you might have:
Division A - UW, UO, Stanford, S-C, UA, Utah
Division B - WSU, OSU, kal, UCLA, ASU, Colo.

---------
Of course, to keep the California schools together they could have just gone to actual north-south locations [Stanford,Berkeley are both south of Boulder/Salt Lake City]. But the point was to satisfy first Colorado and Utah's demand to be with the LA schools (though how Utah had any power to make any demands is beyond me) and actual geography had nothing to do with it.

[CTcard]

The zipper idea was tossed around in the media, on blogs, and in discussion groups, but it was not originally the conference's idea, but Wilner's. It's not even clear whether the conference itself discussed it.

True, and the zipper meant that each of the natural rivals would be in opposite divisions. The one guaranteed game against the other division each year would be your rival. The rest would rotate.

So, you might have:
Division A - UW, UO, Stanford, S-C, UA, Utah
Division B - WSU, OSU, kal, UCLA, ASU, Colo.

---------
Of course, to keep the California schools together they could have just gone to actual north-south locations [Stanford,Berkeley are both south of Boulder/Salt Lake City]. But the point was to satisfy first Colorado and Utah's demand to be with the LA schools (though how Utah had any power to make any demands is beyond me) and actual geography had nothing to do with it.