The exclusion of USC’s Carol Folt and UCLA’s Gene Block from a “Briefing Book” illustrates how the Pac-12 treated the leaders of the outgoing schools.

UW and Oregon executives acknowledged in writing that they would be excluded from decisions on the Pac-12’s future — potentially critical evidence as WSU and Oregon State battle for conference control.

The lame-duck Pac-12 is the most interesting conference in college football. It isn’t riding off into the sunset. It’s taking out every opponent under the sun.

WSU president Kirk Schulz declined to say if Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff would lead media-rights negotiations if the remaining schools rebuild the conference.

UW’s future in the Big Ten will surely be more lucrative, but will it ever be as fulfilling as its time in the Pac-12?

Abysmal leadership by school presidents and missteps by commissioners George Kliavkoff and Larry Scott have sent the Pac-12 on a path of self-destruction.

With few hopeful signs of the Pac-12 resurrecting itself in any meaningful way, sadness has given way to a kind of numbed resignation.

George Kliavkoff is either bluffing with the skill of a consummate card shark or on verge of pulling off a feat many viewed as improbable, if not impossible.

The Pac-12’s next media-rights package must at least come close to the Big 12’s, or the conference could crumble in response to a subpar deal.