Pac-12 Sizzle: Crunching The Numbers On The Pac-12 Promo Video

At Pac-12 Media Day, the Pac-12 released a promotional video.  It seemed like your standard promo vid with quick shots of exciting football and a "very serious" narration. Ultimately, this is a video that would have worked better for a SEC audience. They would have been enthralled, enraptured really, about the "daggum good" words. But for non-Arizona based Pac-12 fans, it is actually kind of really, really, really, what's the word, oh yes, inane. And not in the good CGB way.

It just plain doesn't make much sense. Former SBNation writer Matt Hinton stated:

"Welcome to the Pac-12: Bring your thesaurus."

But it isn't really accurate. The thesaurus would indicate that there were basic words that could have been used that were not. It's more like:

"Welcome To The Pac-12: Quick! Pick A Bunch Of Words Randomly Out Of The Dictionary."

"Welcome To The Pac-12: We Outsourced Our Promos To Bangalore"

"Welcome To The Pac-12: Sorry, I Can't Hear Your Criticisms Over The Sound Of Counting Money"

This video is a cavalcade of stream of consciousness randomness. A bacchanal of confusing phrases, each one more inaccurately descriptive than the last. See those sentences there? They seemed like they made sense, but if you dug deeper, they really didn't. They coulda been out-takes from the video.

Either way, if you haven't seen the video, here it is. After the jump, you can follow me down the rabbit hole of this video. We've got a full transcript!

This is not the beginning of the story. Nor is it the end.

OK, firstly, it kinda is both. The Pac-12 is starting. That's the beginning. Starting=beginning. I'm not a math whiz, but I think that's reasonably accurate. The Pac-10 is over. That's the end. Over=end. This is where a thesaurus actually would have come in handy. So, two sentence in, we're still at 0% sense made.

It is the new age of a cultural phenomenon.

No. It really isn't. Until there are hordes of teenage girls clawing at each other to get but a touch of Larry Scott, it's not a cultural phenomenon. I don't think the Pac-12 is going to get the Twilight treatment anytime soon. Although Larry Scott's recent Beiber Bangs haircut is a good first step

The story of Pac-12 football is one of excellence and innovation. A relentless narrative that crystallized through the ages. Powerful. Moving.

This is the first line where it appears a monkey chose words at random from a dictionary. A relentless narrative would be an unyielding, almost painful, continuation over and over and over again. But our narrative is that we are no defense playing pussies who can't stand with the big boys. That's a terrible narrative to have crystallized! The Pac-12 is designed to destroy that crystallization!

And this part is contradictary. Something that crystallizes over time, by definition, is static. IT'S NOT INNOVATIVE! NOTHING CHANGES!!!!!!! Crystallization is the structuring of chemical elements in a repeated pattern over time. It just continues to grow slowly. So, we're still on the 0% meter for making of sense. Did Sarah Palin write this or something?!?

Uncompromising. Rhythmic drumbeats of differentiation echo generation after generation by trailblazing characters, radical rivalries, and iconic moments.

THAT SENTENCE ISN'T EVEN GRAMMATICALLY CORRECT! That is from a poetry slam. It must be. I felt like snapping my fingers quickly after reading that line. I instinctively looked for my extra-hot triple half-caff breve vanilla hazel nut latte. The rest of the world thinks all we do all day is poetry slams. Poetry slams in the morning, poetry slams in the afternoon. All we are doing here is crystallizing our unrelenting narrative some more! The Pac-12 is designed to break down stereotypes, right?

Aren't we supposed to be the intelligent conference. This wouldn't even get a "Pass"in Rhetoric 1B.

As a Cal band alum, I'm at least happy that we can get the drumbeats rhymthic. I was concerned that the UCLA band was getting off there in a few of those bars. Happy to see them back on track.

It's a story that inspires us over and over again.

Only to savage it over and over again.

And now, from 10 to 12: There is strength in numbers, as two preeminent universities join the ranks. One, a progressive powerhouse, stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the Rocky Mountains.

Just say they are stoned. Just say it.

The other, a panoramic heartbeat of this nation's 45th state. Undeniably prolific. Home of undefeated, and the MUSS.

At first when I heard this, I thought "Utah is 45th in what?" Per Capita Income? Ethnic Diversity? Infant Mortality? Turns out, they mean chronologically. Who could have guessed that? That it was the 45th state to enter the union. And I'm not even 100% on this, but I haven't checked. I don't care. Nobody does. Nobody knows the order. I don't know when California did. I bet it is not #1. Probably not #50.

But it could be ANYWHERE in between. That is why this doesn't work. Nobody cares that it is the 45th state to join, except for the 46th state (probably New Hampshire) which is pissed that they lost to Utah!

Colorado and Utah, where the game of football is in their blood.

That's probably not that healthy. They should have that checked out.

Today the page turns. The storylines shift, as all eyes return to the west, where a procession of field marshals stands ready to re-illustrate the term "conference of quarterbacks."

Take that, Mark Sanchez! Now you've hurt the feelings of every quarterback in the Pac-10 for the last few years. They apparently were not illustrating the term "conference of quarterbacks." We apparently need a re-illustration of that.

On the ground, there is raw, unnerving talent.

Unnerving means that you cause fear in others. Clearly, the Pac-12 promo department had never seen Washington State.

Inexplicable blends of agility and electricity.

This one really gets me. While they are saying this, a player does a spin move on the field. Here's the thing. Inexplicable means quizzically unexplainable. Like you have no way of explaining it and too confused to even try. Now, I know that the writers at the Pac-12 promo department have revealed that they get confused easily. Especially about football-related matters. But still, they are talking about on field talent. I think that that is fairly explicable, almost ridiculously explicable. Indubitably explicable!

Allow me to explic!

Players start training at a young age.
They work hard.
They believe in themselves.
They say their prayers.
They eat their vitamins.
On game day, they run hard and right before they are about to be tackled, they spin around.

Now, was that so hard?

This whole script is inexplicable!

Game-breakers in every region, every game. But this conference, this story, this chapter, is not a one-sided affair.

They've clearly never seen a Cal-USC game.

There are defensive masterminds, and shutdown systems that command a belligerent antithesis unlike anything we've seen before.

This sentence makes me feel belligerently antithetical right now. This whole script is a belligerent antithesis to the concept of language itself. I'm concerned that there were people inventing the language of English a thousand years ago going "Should we really do this? Do we want to one day unleash Pac-12 Sizzle unto ye olde world?" Keep this video away from actual British people. It's not good for their mental health!

And if that's not enough, an avant garde redesign of the competitive balance. Twelve teams. Two divisions. One champion. One mission.

THAT IS NOT AVANT GARDE. BERTOLT BRECHT IS AVANT GARDE! ORNETTE COLEMAN IS AVANT GARDE! 12 teams, 2 divisions, thats pretty garde. Thats reasonably garde at this point! I think the SEC is doing that. I think the Big X is doing that.

Avant garde would be 12 teams, 37 conferences, and a little over 3 hundred champions. Avant garde would be football as post-constructivist montage! If the Pac-12 was truly avant garde, they'd just put a urinal down on the field and call it football!

This is more than a beginning. It is more than an end. It is the quintessential profile of what a modern conference can be.

So, after 3 minutes of using every 11th grade SAT vocabulary word incorrectly, we're not even that conference! We've just heard what that conference could be. So, which conference is that? Which is the avant garde conference standing shoulder to shoulder in the Rocky Mountains? Is it the Big East? Which is the inexplicable conference that with the genuinely rhythmic drumbeats? The ACC?

Which is this conference that we could be?

Welcome to Pac-12 football.

You are fizzling my sizzle. Fo shizzle.