The hottest topics in the Pac-12 on any given week, as Twitter and sports-talk radio hosts will attest, are whether the conference will make the playoff, cut a deal with DirecTV, and change commissioners.

About that last matter: Larry Scott isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, based on a dramatic sentiment shift within the conference — a shift rooted in Scott’s reinvention of himself and his management style.

Gone are the days when transparency didn’t exist, when mistakes weren’t readily acknowledged and feedback was often met with pushback.

Gone are the days when policy-making flowed one direction: from the conference office to the campuses.

“We were probably guilty of looking like we were making decisions that make sense for the conference overall but without enough of feel for what the impacts are on campus,’’ Scott said.

“We’ve gotten better at that, but we’ve got more work to do.”

If anything, Scott seemingly has more support internally than he did a year ago, before the third-party officiating scandal … before the Pac-12 missed the College Football Playoff for the third time in four years … before the Pac-12 Networks went dark on U-verse … and before the revenue gap with other Power Five conferences took another great leap forward.

To describe Scott as entrenched for the long haul might be too strong, but he’s clearly on solid ground these days.

“A couple years ago, I’m not sure Larry and the athletic directors and the board (the presidents and chancellors) were all on the same page,’’ Washington State president Kirk Schulz told the Hotline recently..

“I give Larry a lot of credit. He said, ‘I need to do things differently.’ He said he would change things, and there’s more transparency, and he’s willing to engage more people in decision making. I appreciate that. I’m pleased with the direction of the conference going forward.”

And Schulz isn’t alone.

Colorado chancellor Phil DiStefano, who chairs the CEO board, was complimentary of Scott’s transformation.

“We thrive as a team when we’re all at the table and listening to each other’s ideas,’’ DiStefano said in a statement emailed to the Hotline. “I’m pleased with how Larry has embraced that.”

Scott’s contract expires in the spring of 2022. There have been no discussions about an extension.

“We haven’t gotten to that yet,’’ he said. “It’s still quite a way’s away, and there are a lot of challenges and projects and things that we’re working on between now and then — a lot of outside challenges, internal issues. I’m very energized by what we’re trying to do.”

The renewed internal support comes after a difficult stretch in which, Scott said, the conference experienced “internal strife.”

During a wide-ranging interview with the Hotline about his decade in charge of the conference, Scott acknowledged that the arrival of new presidents and chancellors created a different dynamic, one that he “could have been more nimble in terms of reacting to.

“I probably didn’t anticipate, had to be reactionary in a way that was probably slow to adapt to changing attitudes and mindset.”

Understanding his pivot requires a brief history lesson, a sketch of the conference as it existed when he arrived in the spring of 2009.

At the time, the 10 presidents and chancellors were frustrated by an undervalued television deal, alarmed at the conference’s limited revenue compared to the Big Ten, and intent on taking advantage of soaring rights fees for live sports.

Scott had succeeded in generating revenue for the Women’s Tennis Association and was given the authority to make sweeping changes — to run the conference from the center, like a professional league.

He would be Roger Goodell; the presidents and chancellors would be the owners.

“When I was hired, there was a very clear mandate,” he said. ‘The athletics directors had pretty much been running the conference. The presidents and chancellors said, ‘We want to take over, we want to be engaged and really run the conference with you.”

The athletic directors — the sentries — were marginalized.

All their institutional knowledge was ignored.

Policies were made in San Francisco, often by conference officials with little or no on-campus experience.

“Over time,” Scott said, “what became clear — a bunch of decisions got made — and the pendulum swung too far. I think we did not have the benefit of the experience, the expertise, a different vantage point on a lot of the things we were doing.

“As a result, some of the (athletic directors) felt disenfranchised, that their advice and expertise was not being value by me or their presidents and chancellors on the board.

“And I was slow to react. I should have recognized that earlier. And even though I felt I had a clear mandate, I probably should have recognized that we were not getting all the input and the best minds around things that we should, and that there would be a backlash of some kind.”

That backlash grew over time … building … building … until change arrived last year on two fronts:

DiStefano took over as chair of the CEO Board and, according to one source, “told Larry he had to work with everybody. ‘You did it one way once, now do it another way.’”

Meanwhile, the officiating scandal — when an untrained official, General Counsel Woodie Dixon, influenced a call — exposed systemic flaws, enraged the athletic directors and embarrassed the conference.

From those concurrent developments — DiStefano’s directive from on high and the dumpster fire on the front line — change came rapidly.

“A great example,’’ DiStefano told the Hotline, “is the external review of football officiating (by the Sibson Group). That idea came from the athletic directors. They felt it was crucial to have an independent firm look at every aspect of officiating to ensure we have the highest standards of integrity.

“I appreciate that Larry was receptive to the feedback from the ADs and fully supportive of the external review.”

Since last winter, the conference has produced a series of policy wins: implementing the 20-game conference basketball schedule, loosening of intra-conference transfer rules, moving the football championship game to Las Vegas.

The timing coincides with greater involvement by the athletic directors and flows from Scott’s twin pivot: His willingness to increase both collaboration and transparency.

In May, for the first time, the Pac-12 provided the public with a breakdown of revenues and expenses for both the conference office and the Pac-12 Networks. (Previously, finances for the two entities had been combined.)

In August, it implemented a transparency policy for football officiating by which egregious mistakes would be acknowledged publicly.

“The dynamics of leadership have really changed,’’ Scott said, “in terms of the requirement to be more transparent, to be more inclusive, to deal with social media, to respond more quickly when there are issues, to acknowledge if errors are made.

“We’ve gone through a real transformation in terms of what people expect, what the public expects, what our members have expected, so that’s been a real challenge for me, too.”

Several athletic directors expressed cautious optimism.

(One cringed at comments Scott made to a gathering of Portland business leaders where, according to the Oregonian, he said of the conference office: “We don’t take credit for the wins, but sometimes we get blamed for the losses.”

(Another AD, who has been privately critical of Scott in the past, said: “He’s been really good if there’s pushback.”)

The presidents are, from all outward appearances, pleased with the changes.

“The Pac-12 leadership team visited our campus recently and engaged in a good, open conversation with our leadership team about ways to collaborate,’’ Utah president Ruth Watkins told the Hotline via email.

“Mark Harlan, our athletic director, was a key member of those discussions. We have a good relationship with the conference office and they seem very open to considering our views.”

Added DiStefano:

“I feel that Larry is supportive of this new approach and sees the value of collaborating with the CEOs and ADs, who bring good ideas to the table.”

For Scott 2.0, the focus is the next 2.5.

“There’s a lot to still be accomplished between now and then,’’ he said of the contract expiration date.

“My objective is to put us in position by 2022, which will be on the eve of getting ready to negotiate (the new media contract), that we’re very well positioned in all respects and ready to see the kind of growth that I think we’re well set up for, and we’ll see then.

“We’ll take stock then.”

*** The Larry Scott decade:

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